



Book. 






PRESENTED l!Y 



JJL-- 



EGINNING fflFE: 



CHAPTERS FOR YOUNG MEN 



ON 



RELIGION, STUDY, AND BUSINESS. 



BY JOHN TULLOCH, D. D., 

peincipaii and peimaeius peoeessoe st. maey's college, 

st. Andrew's, authoe of "the deadees oe the 

eeeoematton," etc. 




PUBLISHED BY THE 
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. 






\&* 







PART L— RELIGION. 

I. Importance of Religion — page 13 

II. 0|ject of Religion - - 19 

III. The Supernatural - 33 

IV. Revelation - 43 

V. The Christian Evidences -- 48 

VI. The Indirect Witness 52 

VII. The Direct Witness 65 

VIII. The Internal Witness - 92 

IX. What to Believe ^ - 102 

X. What to Aim at - 122 

PART II.— BUSINESS. 

I. WhattoDo 135 

II. HowtoDo It------- - 154 



4 CONTENTS. 

PABT III.— STUDY. 

I. How to Bead : 171 

II. Books— What to Head --- 189 

PABT IV.— BECBEATION. 

I. How to Enjoy -_._-_ 227 

II. What to Enjoy 243 

CONCLUSION 257 




INTRODUCTION. 




'HEBE is a charm in opening manliood 
which has commended itself to the 
imagination in every age. The undefined 
hopes and promises of the future — the 
dawning strength of intellect — the vigor- 
ous flow of passion — the very exchange of home 
ties and protected joys for free and manly pleas- 
ures, give to this period an interest and excite- 
ment unfelt, perhaps, at any other. It is the 
beginning of life in the sense of independence and 
self-supporting action. Hitherto life has been to 
boys, as to girls, a derivative and dependent exist- 
ence—a sucker from the parent growth — a home 
discipline of authority and guidance and communi- 
cated impulse. But henceforth it is a transplanted 
growth of its own — a new and free power of activ- 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

ity, in which the mainspring is no longer authority 
or law from without, but principle or opinion from 
within. The shoot which has been nourished under 
the shelter of the parent stem, and bent according 
to its inclinations, is transferred to the open world, 
where of its own impulse and character it must 
take root, and grow into strength, or sink into 
weakness and vice. 

There is a natural pleasure in such a change. 
The sense of freedom is always joyful, at least at 
first. The mere consciousness of awakening pow- 
ers and prospective work touches with elation the 
youthful breast. 

But to every right-hearted youth this time must 
be also one of severe trial. Anxiety must greatly 
dash its pleasure. There must be regrets behind, 
and uncertainties before. The thought of home 
must excite a pang even in the first moments of 
freedom. Its glad shelter — its kindly guidance — 
its very restraints, how dear and tender must they 
seem in parting! How brightly must they shine 
in the retrospect as the youth turns from them to 
the hardened and unfamiliar face of the world! 
With what a sweet, sadly-cheering pathos must 
they linger in the memory ! And then what risks 
and perils there are in his newly-gotten freedom ! 
"What instincts of warning in its very novelty and 
dim inexperience ! What possibilities of failure as 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

well as of success in the unknown future as it 
stretches before liirn ! 

Serious thoughts like these more frequently 
underlie the careless neglect of youth than is sup- 
posed. They do not show themselves, or seldom 
do; but they work deeply and quietly. Even in 
the boy who seems all absorbed in amusements or 
tasks there is frequently a secret life of intensely 
serious consciousness which keeps questioning with 
itself as to the meaning of what is going on around 
him and what may be before him — which projects 
itself into the future, and rehearses the respon- 
sibilities and ambitions of his caneer. 

Certainly there is a grave importance as well as 
a pleasant charm in the beginning of life. There 
is awe as well as excitement in it, when rightly 
viewed. The possibilities that lie in it of noble or 
ignoble work — of happy self-sacrifice or ruinous 
self-indulgence — the capacities in the right use of 
which it may rise to heights of beautiful virtue, in 
the abuse of which it may sink to depths of debas- 
ing vice — make the crisis one of fear as well as of 
hope, of sadness as well as of joy. It is wistful as 
well as pleasing to think of the young passing year 
by year into the w T orld, and engaging with its du- 
ties, its interests, and temptations. Of the throng- 
that struggfe at the gates of entrance, how many 
reach their anticipated goal ? Carry the mind for- 



8 INTKODUCTION. 

ward a few years, and some have climbed the hills 
of difficulty and gained the eminence on which they 
wished to stand — some, although they may not 
have done this, have yet kept their truth unhurt, 
their integrity unspoiled; but others have turned 
back, or have perished by the way, or fallen in 
weakness of will, no more to rise again. 

As we place ourselves with the young at the 
opening gates of life, and think of the end from the 
beginning, it is a deep concern more than any thing 
else that fills us. Words of earnest argument and 
warning counsel rather than of congratulation rise 
to our lips. The seriousness outweighs the pleas- 
antness of the prospect. The following pages have 
sprung out of this feeling. They deal with religion, 
and especially with the difficulties of Christian 
faith at present; they venture to touch upon pro- 
fessional business and its responsibilities; they offer 
some counsels as to study and books. The inter- 
ests and occupation of the writer have naturally 
led him to deal with the first of these topics at 
most length. Faith is the foundation of life; reli- 
gion of duty; and it is impossible to discuss either 
without respect to the peculiar atmosphere of doubt 
in which we live, and in which many of the young- 
live even more consciously than their elders. Tet 
there is nothing of elaborateness — of learning — or 
the pretence of learning, in these discussions. They 



INTKODUCTION. 9 

are designed as the free talk of a friend rather than 
the disquisitions of a theologian. The author has 
long thought over some of the topics, and he should 
be glad if his thoughts were useful to any who may 
be busy with the same inquiries. Plain and un- 
elaborate as they are, they are not likely to interest 
any but those who have some spirit of inquiry. If- 
to such they should prove at all "Aids to faith," 
their highest purpose would be served. 



PARI 1 I. 



RELIGION. 




BEGINNING LIFE. 




IMPORTANCE OF 



f 



ELIGION, 



'HE most important subject to a young 
man, or to any man, is religion. What 
is my position in the world ? Whence have 
I come, and whither am I going ? What 
is the meaning of life and of death? Whe„t 
is above and before me ? These are questions 
from the burden of which no one escapes. The 
most idle, the most selfish, the most self-confident 
do not evade them. Those who care least for reli- 
gion, in any ordinary sense, are found inventing 
their own solution of them. All experience proves 
that men cannot shut out the thought of the unseen 
and the Supreme, although they may banish from 
their minds the faith of their childhood, and despise 
what they deem the superstition of their neighbors. 
The void thus created fills up with new materials of 
faith, often far less interesting and unspeakably less 



14 BEGINNING LIFE. 

worthy than those which they superseded. Our age 
has been rife in examples of this; and men have 
wondered — if indeed any aberration of human intel- 
lect can well excite wonder — at the spectacle of 
those who have professed that they could not con- 
ceive of any notion of a Supreme Being without 
emotions of ridicule, exhibiting a faith in the super- 
natural, in comparison with which the superstitions 
of a past age are probable and dignified. So 
strangely does violated human nature take its re- 
venges, and bring in at the door what has been 
unhappily expelled at the window. 

The thought of the supernatural abides with 
man, do wdiat he will. It visits the most callous; it 
interests the most skeptical. For a time — even for 
a long time — it may lie asleep in the breast, either 
amid the sordid despairs, or the proud, rich, and 
young enjoyments of life ; but it wakens up in curi- 
ous inquiry, or dreadful anxiety. In any case, it is 
a thought of which no man can be reasonably inde- 
pendent. In so far as he retains his reasonable 
being, and preserves the consciousness of moral 
susceptibilities and relations, in so far will this 
thought of a higher world— of a life enclosing and 
influencing his present life— be a powerful and prac- 
tical thought with him. 

It becomes clearly, therefore, a subject of urgent 
importance to every man how he thinks of a higher 
world. What is it to him ? What are its objects — 
their relation to him, and his relation to them? 



IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION. 15 

Suppose the case of a young man entering upon 
life, with, the sense of duty beginning to form on 
him, or at least working itself clear and firm in his 
mind, how directly must all his views of the near 
and the present be affected by his thought of the 
Supreme and the future ? It may not be that he 
has any distinct consciousness of moulding his views 
of the one by the other. But not the less surely 
will the "life that now is" to him be moulded by 
the character of the life that he believes to be above 
him and before him. The lower will take its color 
from the higher — the "near" from the "heavenly 
horizon." There will be a light or a darkness shed 
around his present path in proportion as his faith 
opens a steady or a hesitating, a comprehensive or 
a partial gaze into the future and unseen. 

It may seem, on a mere superficial view, that 
this is an overstatement. The young grow up and 
go into the world, and take their places there often 
with little feeling of another world, and how they 
stand in relation to it. Their characters are formed 
as it might seem by chance, and the tastes and opin- 
ions of the accidental society into which they are 
thrown. And no doubt such influences are very 
potent. They are the enveloping atmosphere of 
character, silently feeding and rounding the outlines 
of its growth. But withal, its true springs are 
deeper — "Out of the heart are the issues of life." 
The soul within is the germ of the unfolding man, 
no less than the seed is that of the plant, fashioned 



16 BEGINNING LIFE. 

and fed as it may be by the outer air. And the 
essential form of character will be found in every 
case to depend upon the nature of the inner life 
from which it springs. Whether this be dull and 
torpid, or quick and powerful, will very soon show 
itself in the outward fashion of the man. 

The mere surface of many lives may look equally 
fair, but there will be found to be a great difference 
according as some hold to a higher life, and draw 
their most central and enduring qualities thence; 
and as others are found to have no higher attach- 
ment — no living spring of Divine righteousness and 
strength. What is deepest in every man, and most 
influential, however little at times it may seem so, 
is, after all, his relation to God and the unseen. 
The genuine root of character is here, as trial soon 
proves. How a man believes concerning God and 
the higher world — liow his soul is — will show itself in 
his whole life. From this inner source, its essen- 
tial and determining qualities will run. On this 
foundation its structure rests. 

The religious belief of young men, therefore, is 
a subject of the most vital moment for themselves, 
and for all. Whatever tends to affect it is preg- 
nant with incalculable consequences. To weaken 
or lose it, is to impair the very life of society. To 
deepen and expand it is to add strength to char- 
acter and durability to virtue. The present must be 
held to be a time of trial, so far as the faith of the 
young and the faith of all are concerned. Ques- 



IMPOETANCE OF EELIGION. 17 

tions touching the worth and the authority of Chris- 
tianity are widely mooted and openly canvassed. 
There may be something to alarm — there is cer- 
tainly much to excite serious thought in this pre- 
vailing bias of religious discussion. Of one thing 
we may be sure, that it is neither possible to avert 
this course of discussion, nor desirable to do so. It 
must have free course. The thought of many hearts 
must be spoken out — otherwise it will eat within, 
and. the last state will be worse than the first. It 
may be perilous to have the faith of our youth tried 
as by fire; but it would be still more perilous to 
discountenance or stifle free* inquiry. Christianity 
has nothing to fear from the freest discussion. Its 
own motto is, "Prove all things — hold fast that 
which is good." 

It seems a very hopeless thing, nowadays, to try 
to hold any minds by the mere bonds of authority. 
The intellectual air all around is too astir for this. 
There is no system of mental seclusion can well shut 
out the young from opinions the most opposite to 
those to which they have been accustomed. The 
old safeguards, which w T ere wont to enclose the reli- 
gious life as with a sacred charm, no longer do so. 
Even those who rest within the shade of authority, 
do so in many cases from choice rather than from 
habit. They know not what else to do. They have 
gone in quest of truth, and have not found it ; and so 
they have been glad to throw themselves into arms 
which profess an infallible shelter, and seek repose ^ 



18 BEGINNING LIFE. 

there. This is not remedy for doubt, but despair of 
reason. And no good can come in this way. 

The young can only be led in the way of truth, 
not by stifling, but by enlightening and strengthen- 
ing all reasonable impulses within them. Religion 
must approve itself .to them as thoroughly reasona- 
ble — in a right sense — as well as authoritative. It 
must be the highest truth, in the light of judgment 
and history and conscience. 



>^\l lf //> 





Qbject of Religion, 

HE fundamental point in religious in- 
quiry must be the character of the Su- 
preme Existence. That there is a Supreme 
Existence or Power operating in the world 
can scarcely be said to be denied by any. 
The Pantheist does not deny the reality of such a 
Power. The Positivist does not dispute it. Both fall 
back upon something higher, something general, in 
which lower and particular existences take their rise. 
The atheist or the absolute skeptic of existence su- 
perior to his own is not to be found, or at least need 
not be argued with ; for it is not possible to find any 
common ground of argument with him, and all con- 
troversy must suppose some common ground from 
which to start. The pure atheistic position is so 
utterly irrational as to be beyond the pale of discus- 
sion. Everywhere in the range of modern specula- 
tion and modern science, it is conceded, or rather it 
may be said to be implied as a rational datum, with- 
out which neither philosophy nor science would be 
intelligible, that there is a universal principle per- 
vading existence, and in some sense controlling it. 
"What principle ? and in what sense superior and 



20 BEGINNING LIFE. 

controlling ? It is here that all the controversy ' 
lies, and has long lain; and in our time especially, 
the inquirer is met here at once with seductive the- 
ories, which, while they serve to exercise his rational 
instinct, and seem to fall in with the advancing 
results of scientific investigation, are in their very 
nature destitute of all religious and moral value. 

The Pantheist tells him that the universal prin- 
ciple is nothing else than the spirit of nature, or the 
collective life, animating all its parts, and ever taking 
new shapes of order and beauty in its endless muta- 
tions. The Positivist speaks to him of the laws of 
nature, or the great scheme in which these laws 
unite, regulating and governing all things. By both 
the universal principle is held to be a principle with- 
in nature. "Whether it be regarded as a Pantheistic 
spirit-life, or a material law or force — the conclusion 
is the same, that it is only nature itself, in some 
modification or another, which is the ultimate spring 
of existence, and the great arranger of it. There is 
no room left in either view for an Existence trans- 
cending nature, and acting independently of it. 

It may seem that this is a very old delusion; and 
so it is. There is no creed of human origin older 
than that which deifies nature. There is no specu- 
lation more ancient than Pantheism. Yet there is 
none also younger — none more powerful over many 
minds at the present day. Is nature a self-subsist- 
ent, ever-unfolding process, containing all its ener- 
gies within itself? and are life and intelligence mere 



OBJECT OF RELIGION. 21 

developments from its fertile bosom ? Or is mind 
the primary directing power of which nature is but 
the expression and symbol? Is there a life higher 
than any mere nature-life — a rational and moral 
will, transcending and guiding all the processes of 
nature — in nothing governed by, in everything gov- 
erning them? This is the issue, more pertinently 
and urgently than ever, in the present crisis of spec- 
ulative and religious inquiry. 

How deeply this question goes into the whole 
subject of religion and morality must be obvious to 
any reflection. If once the doubt insinuates itself, 
and begins to hold the mind as to whether there is 
a higher Will than our own instructing and guiding 
us, to which we are responsible, and whose law 
should be our rule, it is plain that the very spring 
of divine obedience must be slackened, if not de- 
stroyed. Men cannot habitually hold themselves 
free from a sense of duty, and yet be dutiful — can- 
not deliberately cherish views at variance with all 
feeling of reverence for a higher Power, and yet be 
pious. When the mind comes to dwell familiarly on 
the idea of nature rather than of God, on that of 
development rather than of responsibility, on that 
of harmony rather than of authority, there gradually 
follows a marked change in the point of view from 
which life, and all its relations and interests, are 
regarded. There springs up an insensible and sub- 
tile selfishness, all the more powerful that it pro- 
ceeds not from the grosser impulses, but from a dif- 



22 BEGINNING LIFE. 

fused reflective feeling that nothing as it were can 
be helped, that " the great soul of the world is just," 
and that every man accordingly is to take the good 
provided for him, and make the most of it for his 
own happiness, unmindful of the happiness or the 
misery of others. 

There is plenty of this selfishness, no doubt, in 
the world under every variety of opinion — plenty of 
it, alas, in the very heart pf the Christian church ; 
but a system of thought which contemplates the 
w r orld as its own end, and life at the very best as a 
mere process of culture, which, by rejecting a higher 
Will, deliberately rejects a moral ideal, tends direct- 
ly to encourage and educate such a comprehensive 
spirit of self-indulgence as the only guide of con- 
duct. " Our appetites, being as much a portion of 
ourselves as any other quality we possess, ought to 
be indulged, otherwise the whole individual is not 
developed." This becomes the obvious canon of a^ 
philosophy which looks no higher than nature. It 
consecrates passion, and hallows the pleasures of 
the world as sources of experience and culture. 

Such views may easily prove seductive to young 
minds. There is a novelty and apparent grandeur 
and comprehensiveness about them that steal the 
imagination as w r ell as minister to the senses. Es- 
pecially is this apt to prove the case where the fair 
claims of nature may have been made to yield to 
the arbitrary exercise of religious authority. When 
the bow has been bent too far in one direction, it 



OBJECT OF KELIGION. 23 

will recoil in the other. Keligion is sometimes 
enforced to the neglect and even the defiance of 
nature. Nature takes its revenge when it wakens 
up and finds itself strong in the consciousness of 
neglected rights. Authority sometimes holds the 
reins upon conscience too tightly and pretentiously. 
And conscience takes its pay w^hen it is able to look 
its master in the face, and finds how ill-supported 
are its assertions, and how imaginary many of its 
terrors. 

The question before us is one of fair argument 
and deduction, from the facts of nature and the 
characteristics of human life and history. If the 
theory which regards nature in some form or another 
as the Highest, fits into the facts of the world, and 
adequately accounts for them — if it be satisfactory 
to the demands of reason and conscience, and fur- 
nish an adequate solution of the great realities of 
history— then it would certainly make out a strong 
case. But if it break down in every one of these 
particulars — if it fail to meet the demands of reason, 
or conscience, or history — then it has no pretence 
on which to claim our assent. It is convicted of 
falsehood, and sent away. 

The special difficulty of the question consists in 
fairly grappling with our adversary. How are we 
to meet him? And what weapons of controversy 
will he accept ? The two sides keep pitched against 
one another, like opposite camps of thought, with- 
out directly meeting. They do not come forth into 



24 BEGINNING LIFE. 

some cliosen field, and fight out their differences. 
The spiritualist appeals to internal experience — to 
the testimony of "consciousness," as it is called; 
but the Positivist rejects this appeal, and calls for 
statistics as the only trustworthy ground regarding 
human nature. The one says, "I feel and know in 
my inmost experience that I am not merely a part 
of nature — that there is that in me which asserts its 
superiority to nature, and its independence of the 
natural law of cause and effect;" the other treats 
the internal feeling as merely a delusive play of 
consciousness, without any logical value, and says, 
" Take all men in the aggregate, and their conduct 
is found regulated by invariable law. Over a cer- 
tain area of population the same moral facts will be 
found to repeat themselves; a certain proportion 
will be found who commit suicide, who are guilty of 
theft, and who poison their neighbors. All this 
proves the mere natural necessity that governs 
human affairs." 

The tables of the statistician are undeniable. 
Beyond doubt there is a fixed ratio in moral facts. 
There is nothing arbitrary nor unregulated in human 
conduct. The phenomena of intellectual and moral 
life, in all their subtile and complex combinations, 
obey the same order that is everywhere discovered 
in external nature. 

But this is nothing to the point. For the ques- 
tion is not as to the character of these phenomena, 
but as to the source of them. There is no intelli- 



OBJECT OF RELIGION. 25 

gent Theist will claim that human conduct be ex- 
empted from the law of serial development. But 
he refuses to admit what the Positivist seems to 
think a necessary inference from this — that this 
character of order in human affairs arises from the 
same immutable necessity as it does in nature. In 
the latter, the whole process is physically condi- 
tioned. The links in the chain of succession may 
be all exposed. But in the evolution of mental 
phenomena this is admitted to be impossible.* The 
inductive logician allows as much as this. The Tlie- 
ist goes farther, and maintains that, in the last 
resort, there is an internal power or self w^hich can- 
not be brought within the law of natural sequence ; 
nay, which, in its essence, defies this law, and places 
itself over against it. 

According to this view, man is under law r ; but 
he is also more than any mere natural law. The 
law r s which regulate phenomena apply to his con- 
duct, but they do not exhaust his being. He has a 
spirit and life of his own which transcend nature- 
conditions, and are not contained by them. Above 
the system of these conditions there is a higher sys- 
tem of being, and man, in his innermost life, belongs 
to this higher system. It is his peculiar glory that 
he does so; that, amid ceaseless movements of mat- 
ter, before which he is apparently so weak, he is 
conscious of an existence higher than all matter, 
and which would survive its wildest crash. He 

* Mill's Logic, 2. 422. 

Beffittniiis Life, •> 



26 BEGINNING LIFE. 

knows himself, and that is what nature does not do. 
There is no play of conscious life in its mighty mu- 
tations. But man is characteristically a conscious 
being. According to the frequently quoted saying 
of Pascal, "Man is but a reed, the feeblest thing in 
nature; but he is a reed that thinks — un roseau pea- 
sant. It needs not that the universe arm itself to 
crush him. An exhalation, a drop of water suffices 
to destroy him. But were the universe to crush 
him, man is yet nobler than the universe, for he 
hioivs that he dies ; and the universe, even in pre- 
vailing against him, knows not its power." 

"Man is yet nobler than the universe." He is 
characteristically a self-conscious, thinking soul, 
higher than all nature, and which no subtile devel- 
opment of mere natural conditions can ever explain. 
This is the eternal basis of Christian Theism, and 
of all religion that is not a mere consecration of 
earthly energies and passions. This is the only 
spring of a genuine morality that can survey man 
as under some higher law of voluntary obedience, 
and not a mere law of harmony and growth. 

And if our appeal to internal experience is not 
accepted, let us carry our appeal into the open world 
of history. If consciousness may cheat us, surely 
the voice of collective humanity cannot deceive us. 
The Positivist at least cannot refuse an appeal to 
the course of civilization. 

Now, of two theories of human progress, the one 
of which regards history as a mere development of 



OBJECT OF RELIGION. 27 

natural laws, and the other of which, while admit- 
ting the operation of such laws, yet recognizes 
everywhere a higher Divine agency expressed in 
them— we affirm confidently that the latter theory 
is not only more consistent with the dignity of 
humanity, but is the only one capable of explaining 
its development. Once recognize the spiritual char- 
acter of man, the pow T er of free will and moral 
action in him, allying him to a higher system of 
things, and history becomes a grand and intelligible 
drama with a clear meaning. Notwithstanding all 
its retrogressions and perplexities, the higher is still 
seen overcoming the lower, and the tide of improve- 
ment swelling forward, not merely under natural 
changes, but an advancing force of moral intelli- 
gence. 

That this force is the special spring of human 
progress is everywhere apparent. At every great 
turn of man's course it has been a new moral life — 
some breathing of a higher spirit — and not any 
mere combinations of material, nor even of intellec- 
tual agencies, which has saved civilization from 
what seemed impending dissolution, and driven its 
wheels forward with a fresh impetus. Taking man 
in any point of view, it is the reality of this higher 
life, however caricatured and debased, that more 
than any thing else strikes us. All speculation 
implies it — all religion witnesses to it. It is the 
light shining amid all the natural grossness of his 
career, and guiding it onward amid all its entangle- 



28 BEGINNING LIFE. 

nients. All the noblest deeds of heroism spring 
from it. All the highest expressions of thought 
radiate it. To the Positivist these are puzzles to be 
accounted for on his theory. To the Theist they 
are only the glancing expressions of his own faith 
in a Divine origin of humanity — the brightening 
evidence of a higher spirit in it claiming affinity 
with a higher system of things — a Divine order be- 
low which man has fallen, but to which he still holds 
relations. 

Can any one, after all, seriously believe that 
human history is a mere play of natural forces, and 
man the half-conscious player — the creature not of 
a higher intelligent guidance, but rather of dumb 
nature conditions and the brain-power which they 
generate? When the conclusion is thus nakedly 
put, it contains within itself its own refutation. It 
would indeed be a contradiction of all progress, and 
a lie to all civilization, to affirm that this w T as the 
climax of both — the discovery in which they were 
destined to culminate. No; all consciousness and 
all history prove — if it is possible to prove any 
thing — that man is a spiritual being, with convic- 
tions and hopes and aspirations above the world, 
which no merely natural good can satisfy, and 
which are in truth the motion of the Divinity with- 
in him. He is nature, and yet spirit. "He is man, 
and yet more than man," as Pascal has it. There 
is a divine element of conscious reason in him wdiich 
asserts its superiority over the whole sphere of 



OBJECT OF RELIGION. 29 

nature. While in one point of view we feel called 
upon to say with the same great thinker, "What 
is man in the scale of infinitude ? he is nothing in 
comparison ;" yet, in another point of view, " He is 
every thing in comparison." His very greatness is 
deducible from his weakness. A mere point in cre- 
ation, he is yet its interpreter, and in a true sense 
its master. "He is the prophet of the otherwise 
dumb oracle — the voice of the otherwise silent sym- 
bol." First humbly learning, he can then rule its 
secrets, and apply them to his purposes and pleas- 
ure. He is thus the centre, if not the "measure 
of things" — the conscious life within the vast cir- 
cumference and variety of unconscious being, who 
gives all its highest beauty and meaning to the lat- 
ter. "In nature there is nothing great but man; 
in man there is nothing great but mind." 

Such a view as this at once carries us beyond 
nature. It is of the very essence of a free and in- 
telligent will that it is allied to a higher order. It 
comes from above. It has its true being in a region 
of freedom below which nature lies. 

It is of great importance to apprehend this, be- 
cause there has been a recent way of speaking which 
strongly insists upon the manifestation of reason in 
nature, and yet refuses to allow the former an inde- 
pendent existence. The cosmical order is nothing 
but a display of Divine wisdom and power, yet we 
must not conceive of this wisdom and power as pos- 
sibly expressing themselves in any other order. 



30 BEGINNING LIFE. 

Nature not only manifests them, but imbeds and 
fixes them. Take away the sign, and there is noth- 
ing behind. 

Now it is clearly of no consequence whether we 
say "law" or "mind/' if, in the last recourse, we 
mean by the latter nothing more than by the for- 
mer. If w T e do not recognize something behind the 
cosmical order higher than itself, and whose sub- 
sistence is not merely in the order, then we need not 
trouble ourselves to go beyond the latter. If the 
mind that speaks to me in nature be absolutely in- 
variable — if there be no living power beneath its 
"recondite dependencies" which is capable of set- 
ting them aside, if it will — if the mind, in short, 
which it is admitted nature essentially manifests, be 
not a person — nothing but "order" — then I need 
trouble myself but little with its investigation and 
study. A balder Theism than this it is scarcely 
possible to conceive. The position of the Positivist 
is more consistent and intelligible. He generalizes 
facts, and gathers them into unities of law, and 
says he knows nothing more. There is nothing 
more, he pretends, than natural facts, and the law 
or order in which they show themselves. Even he, 
indeed, is not quite consistent in saying so much, for 
the very idea of law only exists to him because 
there is something more than outward facts. There 
is a rational and spiritual element already asserted 
in the very apprehension of law. But at least he is 
somewhat more consistent than the professed The- 



OBJECT OF KELIGION. 31 

ist who speaks of mind in nature, and means mere- 
ly, like the ancient poet, a mens infusa per artus — an 
immanent necessity of reason incapable of action 
apart from nature — inseparably bound up in its 
evolutions.-" 

For on what ground do we discern "mind" or 
"law" in nature at all? Abstract the "we," the 
discerning agent, the light is gone — the yision dis- 
appears; admit the "we," the vision is there. The 
mind is not in the facts. But the mind in us reads 
a mind in nature. 

"In our life alone does nature, live." 

Not that we make nature living and intelligent, but 
that the face of nature answers intelligently to our 
intelligence. There is everywhere the smile of 
recognition on its great outlines ; mind responds to 
mind as in a glass. But what sort of mind? Mind 
merely immanent in nature, and forming a part of 
it ? Not in the least. We do not identify the mir- 
ror and its revelation. The Mind which we contem- 
plate is free and moral like our own, inhabiting 
nature, yet also dwelling in the high and lofty sphere 
beyond; acting by law, yet rejoicing in the pleni- 
tude of its own freedom- — a living Personality, com- 
municating with us in the medium of his own crea- 
tion, 

© Or even the modern poet — 

" A motion arid a spirit that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
And rolls through all things." 



32 BEGINNING LIFE. 

To adopt and extend an illustration furnished to 
our hand by the writer whom we are combating,* 
"If we read a book which it requires thought and 
exercise of reason to understand, but which Ave find 
discloses more and more truth and reason as w T e 
proceed in the study, we properly say that thought 
and reason exist in that book. Such a book confess- 
edly exists, and is ever open to us in the natural 
world." True, but not all the truth. The supposed 
book is in itself a mere arrangement of dead charac- 
ters. The thought and reason are not in it, except 
by a well-understood convention of language. They 
really exist only in the mind of the author ; and the 
really living facts before us are the mind of the au- 
thor and the mind of the reader meeting in the pages 
of the book. 

Such a book is nature, revealing to all who can 
read an intelligent Author. When we study it, the 
conclusion to which we come is, not that it is itself 
mind, or merely that mind exists in it, but that it 
reveals mind. It is the record of the thoughts of 
another mind which has freely chosen this mode of 
communication with us. We rejoice in the commu- 
nication, but we conceive of the mind as still higher 
than its communication. We are thankful for the 
volume ; but we think of the Author as yet greater 
than his volume. 

* Baden Powell. 





The Supernatural. 

>^ 

EASON and history, then, carry us 

beyond nature. We may refuse to lis- 
ten to both, and wrap ourselves in the 
conceit of "general laws," as all that 
we can know. But all our better in- 
stincts rebel against this pseudo-intellectualism ; 
and in our moments of highest knowledge, as well 
as of lowliest reverence, we delight to contemplate 
in nature an Author, and not merely a presence — an 
intelligent will, not merely a comprehensive order. 

But if this be so, there is at least an opening left 
for the supernatural. If there be an intelligent 
Author of the world — a moral Power superior to 
it — it is conceivable that this Being may manifest 
himself in other ways than those which we call nat- 
ural. 

Farther than this we need not go at present. 
We say nothing of the probability or likelihood of a 
supernatural revelation. Paley has put this suppo- 
sition with his usual shrewd ingenuity; but other 
considerations besides that of the mere existence of 
a higher Power are required to give effect to it. 
The question before us at present is simply as to the 
possibility of a supernatural revelation. And our 

2* 



34 BEGINNING LIFE. 

position is: Let a Supreme Author of nature be 
once recognized — in other words, let a Theistic 
basis of speculation be once accepted — and the 
question as to the possibility of revelation is there- 
by settled in the affirmative. 

It is of some importance to see this clearly. 
The comprehensive spirit of modern speculation 
has, at least, been useful hi clearing away many en- 
tanglements of thought and argument in w T hich the 
opponents and defenders alike of the Christian faith 
were wont to lose themselves. Men see the bearing 
of principles better than they did. The speculative 
arena may be covered with as many combatants as 
ever; but the speculative atmosphere has cleared 
somewhat, and enabled the combatants to see more 
plainly where they stand. 

Supposing, then, we stand on a Theistic basis — 
that, on grounds of reason and history and faith, 
we have accepted such a basis — we are no longer in 
a position to dispute the very idea of miracle. We 
may argue as to the meaning of it, and the fact or 
occurrence in any particular case; but we cannot 
repudiate the possibility of it. For where there is 
a Supreme Will above nature, and ruling it, beyond 
all question this Will may subordinate nature to its 
special purposes — may, in other w T ords, if it please, 
interfere in its ordinary operations,- Shut out this 

* This is the very principle laid down by Newton. The laws 
of nature are inviolable, except when it is good to the Divine will to 
act otherwise — nisi ubi aliter agere bonum est. 



THE SUPEENATUKAL. So 

possibility, and you destroy the speculative basis on 
which you profess to rest. Deny that nature can be 
interfered with, and you leave nothing higher than 
nature. You make it supreme and self-contained. 
You shift your fundamental ground. 

Supposing on the other hand — as Hume virtu- 
ally did — you take your stand on a mere nature- 
basis — fix yourself on the phenomenal, incredulous 
of all existence beyond — then, quite legitimately, 
you would argue with him and others, that there 
can be no such thing as a miracle. If nature 
" round our life," and there be nothing else, or at 
least nothing higher than its sequences, then the 
question of testimony is out of account altogether. 
There can be no miracle. The matter is foregone and 
concluded on a speculative basis, v/hich shuts out 
the idea of miracle altogether, and leaves no room 
for discussion regarding it. 

That this was virtually Hume's position is appa- 
rent to all who examine it. A "uniform experience 
against every miraculous event" is nothing else than 
the assertion of a nature-basis. Law or sequence 
is in such a view invariable. There is nothing else. 
It is of little consequence to argue about the rela- 
tive value of testimony and experience, where expe- 
rience is erected into a uniformity which cannot be 
overturned. This position has been avowedly laid 
down by modern unbelief. The grand principle of 
law is pervading and universal. It is impossible to 
conceive any conflict with it. And miracle being in 



36 BEGINNING LIFE. 

its very conception at variance with it, must be re- 
jected. This has been declared by a whole host of 
writers in our day. The young can scarcely take 
up a Eeview in which the position is not asserted 
or combated. 

It was very natural, perhaps, that this conflict 
should arise between law and miracle. There is 
something so captivating in the idea of a great cos- 
mical order, that it is apt to carry away the scien- 
tific mind, and shut out all other ideas from it. The 
idea is not only captivating, but illuminating. It 
gives light to the reason and peace to the conscience, 
when rightly apprehended. The theologian assu- 
redly need- not try to fight with it — he will only 
blunt his weapons and injure his cause — he must 
adopt and expand it, as was long ago hinted by one 
of the greatest of theological thinkers. This Chris- 
tian thought has not failed to do in our day. As 
the idea of law has ascended to its present domi- 
nance over the higher intelligence, it has been able 
to show that the idea, rightly conceived, is not at 
all at variance with the Christian miracles. 

Supposing it be admitted that law is universal, 
that the world is founded on it, and is otherwise 
unintelligible to the reason — what then? This fun- 
damental law or order is not necessarily identical 
with any existing series of natural phenomena. 
These express it, but they do not measure it. You 
can only maintain that they do so by placing nature 
above mind — by denying the idea of a Supreme 



THE SUPEKNATUEAL. 37 

Will guiding and controlling the world — by denying, 
in short, the Theistic basis on which we profess to 
argue. It is not only not inconsistent with this basis 
to conceive of the Supreme Mind under the idea of 
law, but, in point of fact, this idea is essentially 
involved in every enlightened doctrine of Theism. 
God is eminently a God of order. Every manifes- 
tation of the Supreme Yfill must assume to our 
minds the form of order. Arbitrariness, or caprice, 
or even interference, in the petty use of that term, 
is entirely at variance with every enlightened con- 
ception of Deity. 

So far, therefore, there is no quarrel between 
the upholders of law and the advocates of a Theis- 
tic interpretation of nature. Only the last word of 
the one may be law; while the last word of the 
other is " God." But further, if the action of the 
Supreme Reason is not to be measured by any 
existing order of natural phenomena, then we open 
room at once for a higher order of phenomena 
taking the place of the present, should this seem right 
and wise to the Supreme Reason. The question is not 
one of "interference," but of higher and lower ac- 
tion. The Divine order may take a new start, and 
issue in new forms for the accomplishment of its 
owtl beneficent ends. The Scripture miracle is the 
expression of the Divine order in such new shapes — 
" the law of a greater freedom," as one has said,* 
"swallowing up the law of a lesser." 

° Dean Trench. 



oS BEGINNING LIFE. 

But this, it may be said — and has been by some 
said, not without the vehemence characteristic of 
old opinions — is something very different from the 
old idea of a miracle, which was understood to in- 
volve a "temporary suspension of the known laws 
of nature" — "a deviation from the established con- 
stitution and fixed order of the universe." 

Such definitions, be it observed, on one side or 
another, are in no degree scriptural. The scriptural 
facts simply announce themselves ; they nowhere 
tell us w T hat we are to think of them. We may 
think of them in the one or the other of these ways, 
and yet be equally just to their Christian signifi- 
cance and value. 

Is there really, after all, much difference between 
the views, when we analyze and look closely at the 
terms in which they are conveyed? A "miracle," 
some will have us say, is a "suspension," a "viola- 
tion of known laws of nature." This is language 
carelessly flung in the face of scientific induction; 
but what, after all, must it mean to any enlightened 
Theist? The "known laws of nature" of which it 
speaks, are and can be nothing more than some sec- 
tion or series of natural phenomena, and the sup- 
posed miracle nothing more than the temporary 
arrest or reversal of these phenomena. Certain 
conditions of disease ordinarily cause death; the 
progress of the disease is stopped, and the patient 
healed. The inevitable sequences of dissolution are 
arrested, and the dead man is restored to life again. 



THE SUPERMTUKAL. 39 

Tliese are sufficiently impressive illustrations of 
"suspension" or "violation" of natural laws. But 
are they not also very good illustrations of lower 
laws giving place to higher — the laws of disease to 
the laws of health — the laws of death to those of 
life ? We may use what terms we like, but the fact 
is we know nothing of the mode of miraculous op- 
eration, and rather reveal our ignorance than any 
thing else, by our definitions in this as in many 
other matters. All that w T e really apprehend is a 
change of natural conditions under some supernat- 
ural impulse. What appears "reversal" or "viola- 
tion" to us, may seem any thing but*this to a more 
comprehensive vision than ours. 

The stoutest advocate of interference can mean 
nothing more than that the Supreme Will has so 
moved the hidden springs of nature, that a new 
issue arises on given circumstances. The ordinary 
issue is supplanted by a higher issue. This seems 
an appropriate w T ay of expressing the character of 
the change wrought. But in any case, the essential 
facts before us are a certain set of phenomena, and 
a higher Will moving them. How moving them ? 
is a question for human definition, but the answer 
to it does not, and cannot, affect the Divine mean- 
ing of the change. Yet when we reflect that this 
higher Will is everywhere reason or wisdom, it seems 
a juster, as well as a more comprehensive view, 
to regard it as operating by subordination and 
evolution rather than by "interference" or "viola- 



40 BEGINNING LIFE. 

tion." We know but a little way. It is not for us 
to measure our knowledge against God's plans, but 
rather to take these plans as the interpreters and 
guides of our knowledge. And seeing how far his 
" miraculous interpositions" have entered into hu- 
man history, and constituted its most powerful ele- 
ments in the education of the human race, it seems 
certainly the humble as well as the wise inference 
which is suggested in Butler's guarded words, that 
these interpositions may have been all along, in like 
manner as God's common providential interposi- 
tions — "by general laws of wisdom." 

According to this view, the idea of law is so far 
from being contravened by the Christian miracles, 
that it is taken up by them and made their very 
basis. They are the expression of a higher Law 
working out its wise ends among the lower and 
ordinary sequences of life and history. These ordi- 
nary sequences represent nature — nature, however, 
not as an immutable fate, but a plastic medium 
through which a higher Voice and "Will are ever 
addressing us, and which therefore may be wrought 
into new issues when the voice has a new message, 
and the will a special purpose for us. 

The advantage of such a view is not only that it 
fits better into the conclusions of modern thought, 
but that it really purifies the idea of miracle, and 
sets it before us in its only true light and impor- 
tance. It is not a mere prodigy or wonder which 
we cannot explain, but it is everywhere a "revel a- 



THE SUPERNATURAL. 41 

tion" or sign — the manifestation of a beneficent or 
wise purpose, and not a mere arbitrary exercise of 
power. It is the indication of a higher kingdom of 
life and righteousness subordinating the lower for 
its good, bringing it into obedience to its own im- 
provement and blessing. There is a higher king- 
dom and a lower kingdom — a kingdom of nature 
and physical sequences, and a kingdom of spirit and 
free agency. "And this free agency, straight out of 
the ultimate springs of the Spirit, seems to give," it 
has been said, "the true conception of the supernat- 
ural. Nature is the sphere and system of God's 
self-prescribed method of reliable evolution of phe- 
nomena ; but above and beyond nature he is spirit, 
including nature indeed as part of its expression, 
but instead of being all committed to nature, trans- 
cending it on every side, and opening a life of com- 
munion with the spirits that can reflect himself. All 
is thus his agency; nature his fixed will — spirit his 
free will." And the miracle emerges when the lat- 
ter is seen to traverse the former, when the higher 
kingdom is seen to witness itself among the ordina- 
rily unchanging phenomena of the lower. 

Miracle is, therefore, truly a revelation of charac- 
ter as well as an exhibition of power. It is the 
Divine Will coming forth to the immediate gaze of 
man, pushing back, as it were, the intervolved folds 
of the physical, so that we may see there is a moral 
spring behind it, and making known some high pur- 
pose in doing so. The idea of interference for the 



12 BEGINNING LIFE. % 

mere sake of interference, or even of the mere asser- 
tion of miglit to subdue or overawe the mind, is not 
that suggested. Rather it is the idea of a higher 
plan and truth unfolding themselves, of a Will 
which, while leaving nature, as a whole, to its estab- 
lished course, must yet witness to itself as above 
nature, and show its glory in the instruction and 
redemption of creatures that are more than nature, 
although having their present being amid its activi- 
ties.* 

* ' ; The one grand and essential distinction between the mira- 
cles of Scripture and the operations of so-called laws is the per- 
sonal and sensible interposition of the Supreme Creator, eviden- 
cing to man his supremacy over nature, and his providential care 
of man by such manifestations of direct power as none but the 
Supreme Creator could possess. This is what Christianity must 
maintain ; all other questions may be set aside. Nature is that 
course of operations in the world before us in which the Divine 
Will is working continually and perpetually, but to us secretly, 
and, as science will assert, uniformly, immutably. Besides that 
there is another course very deeply entwined with it, in which the 
hand and the presence of God are made known to us by a distinct 
series of rare and extraordinary operations. Yet they both make 
up one whole, are both as much parts of one consistent and har- 
monious system, as the grand eclipses of the moon and its occa- 
sional mutations and inflections are features of one predetermined 
orbit." Quaeteely Eeview, October, 1861. - 





Revelation. 

r HEN we turn to contemplate the his- 
torical revelation of the supernatural 
in Scripture, we find that it answers to 
the idea already suggested. It is not a 
series of isolated wonders, but a cohe- 
rent manifestation of Divine purpose, culminating 
in a Divine Personality, who came to bear witness 
of a higher kingdom and truth. 

What is the scriptural representation? Begin- 
ning with, the fall of God's free and intelligent cre- 
ation from an estate of holiness and happiness to 
an estate of sin and misery, it ryifolcls, at first in 
faint and vague outline, but with an increasing par- 
ticularity and brightness as time passes on, a reme- 
dial or redeeming purpose toward the fallen. The 
evolution of this purpose, in adaptation to the 
varying necessities of human nature, is the great 
function of Scripture. Passing through the forms 
of what have been called the patriarchal, the Mo- 
saic, the prophetical dispensations, the purpose 
brightens on us as we descend the course of sacred 
tradition. Whatever is specially miraculous in 
Scripture gathers round it, and receives its highest 



44 BEGINNING LIFE. 

meaning from it. To detach such events, and look 
at them as mere isolated manifestations of super- 
natural power, at once destroys their moral signifi- 
cance and increases their historical difficulty. But 
let them be regarded as parts of a great whole — as 
successive manifestations of an increasing purpose 
running through the ages — as special utterances of 
the great thought and love of God for his crea- 
tures, of which no history is without trace, but of 
which the Jewish history is a continuous and ex- 
ceptional witness; and then, while we never lose 
hold of the moral aim, we shall find that the very 
perception of this aim helps to solve difficulties, and 
to impart a consistency and intelligibility to many 
details. 

. The general form of the supernatural in the Old 
Testament Scriptures is that of a direct communica- 
tion between God and man. Adam hears the voice 
of God speaking, to him in the garden. "The Lord 
God" is represented as calling unto Adam and his 
wife, and enunciating articulately the first promise 
of a Deliverer or Redeemer. In the same manner 
God speaks unto Abraham to go forth from his 
native land, and promises to make of him a great 
nation. Jacob sees God face to face, and speaks 
with him. The Angel of God speaks to him in a 
dream, saying, "I am the God of Bethel." The 
same Divine Personality, "the Angel of the Lord," 
appears to Moses "in a flame of fire out of the 
midst of a bush," and calls to him out of the bush. 



BEVELATION. 45 

saying, " I am the God of thy father, the God of 
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Ja- 
cob." ^ 

It is needless to multiply examples. This form 

of the supernatural runs throughout the whole of 
the Old Testament, and is, as it were, the great 
framework on which it is constructed. It is a reve- 
lation of God to man, in which God personally deals 
with man, instructing, directing, correcting, blessing 
him. One great thought, from first to last, animates 
the revelation — the thought of deliverance — of a 
salvation not come, but coming. Evil was not to 
triumph, although it had gained a temporary vic- 
tory. The seed of the woman w^ould yet " bruise 
the head of the serpent." In Abraham all the fam- 
ilies of the earth were to be blessed. By Moses a 
great deliverance was to be effected. "I will send 
thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my 
people." Joshua was a "saviour." Samuel was a 
prophet of good which was nowhere realized. Da- 
vid constantly pointed to a salvation higher than 
earth — to a rest which was not that of Canaan, 
otherwise "he would not have spoken of another 
day." And in the later prophetic time, this idea of 
future good, of a spiritual kingdom, rises into clear 
prominence. It is the dawning light which colors 
with its upward streaks the darkest horizon of 
prophecy. 

This promise of a higher Messianic kingdom 
and glory, more than any thing else, binds together 



46 BEGINNING LIFE. 

the supernatural texture of the Old Testament. Its 
fulfilment in Jesus Christ is the life and substance 
of the New Testament. He is the long-promised 
Messiah — "he that should come to redeem Israel." 
He is the realization of the continued thought of 
God for his creatures, that " they should not perish 
in their sins, but have eyerlasting life." He is the 
embodiment and completion of the Divine purpose, 
which Abraham saw afar off and was glad, of which 
David sung and Isaiah prophesied. All the threads 
of the supernatural, accordingly, are gathered up in 
Him, in whom are seen the "treasures of the God- 
head bodily." God is no longer found merely speak- 
ing to men from heaven, or in dreams, or appearing 
to them in momentary forms ; but he has become a 
man, living with men, teaching them, healing them, 
saving them. "The Word was made flesh, and 
dwelt among us; and we beheld his glory as the 
glory of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of 
grace and truth." 

The supernatural is thus a living presence, run- 
ning through the ages — an unfolding power, wit- 
nessing to itself as type and oracle and prophecy, 
till it culminated in Christ, who gathers to himself 
all its meaning, Avho is its sum and explanation. 
The idea of a higher order crossing a lower and 
fallen order that it might restore and purify it, is 
exactly the idea which it suggests. And when we 
have seized this idea, we see nothing incongruous 
in the special miracles of Scripture. They fall, we 



EEVELATION. 47 

might say, naturally into their place. Especially 
the Christian miracles cluster around the person of 
Christ as its appropriate manifestation. They are 
only the expressions of the higher will which abode 
in him, and which sought its native and direct 
action in the works of healing and life-giving bless- 
ing which it wrought. 



Jhe p 



HRISTIAN 



f 



YIDENCES. 




/^HAT are called the "Evidences of 
Christianity" form a varied and com- 
plex argument, many parts of which 
can only be adequately appreciated by 
the fully informed and critical student of 
history. The last age, perhaps, placed too much 
dependence on certain branches of these evidences. 
The present age, probably, places too little depen- 
dence on the same branches. Such oscillations of 
opinion are not matters either of congratulation or 
abuse, as they are sometimes made. They are 
facts in the history of opinion to be carefully stud- 
ied and made such good use of as we can. 

It will scarcely be denied by any one who really 
knows the subject, that the school of Sherlock and 
Watson and Paley made too much of what was 
called the " external evidence " of Christianity. They 
looked at its Divine character somewhat too exclu- 
sively in the light of a judicial problem to be set- 
tled by cross-examination. They treated of various 
points quite confidently, which modern criticism has 
shown cannot stand the test of scrutiny. They 
thought they could argue out their thesis irrespee- 



THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 49 

tively of the relation of Christianity to the spiritual 
consciousness of mankind, and even exhibit its Divine 
origin in defiance of the witness of this conscious- 
ness regarding it.* In our day, on the contrary, this 
self- witness, or "internal evidence" of Christianity, 
is like to supplant the consideration of the external 
evidence altogether. Christianity is not only ex- 
amined and tested by the inner witness, but often 
judged by it and placed out of court on the most 
arbitrary pretences. The last was an objective age, 
at whose cool assumptions we have learned to smile ; 
the present is a subjective and critical age, at whose 
rash denials the next will no less probably smile. 

Christianity, as being equally a fact of history 
and a truth addressed to the conscience, must be 
able to substantiate itself alike on- historical and on 
moral grounds. It must be able to stand the most 
critical inquest into its supposed origin ; and it must 
be able, as St. Paul never doubted it was, " by man- 
ifestation of the truth to commend itself to every 
man's conscience in the sight of God." They are 
no friends of it who shrink from the most fearless 
inquiry and discussion in every direction. 

I. As an historical phenomenon Christianity has 
to be accounted for, if not on the supernatural hy- 
pothesis, on some other hypothesis. "What has 

- Dr. Chalmers — in many of his habits of mind a strong disci- 
ple of the Paleyan school — went this length in his early Essay on 
Christianity. Afterward, however, he laid special stress upon the 
internal evidence. 

Beginning Lite. fl 



50 BEGINNING LIFE. 

modern critical inquiry to say regarding it ? Is it 
able to furnish any natural explanation of it? It 
has settled, or nearly so, the genesis of all other 
religions. It can trace and discriminate the vari- 
ous sources of Mohammedanism — take the student 
into the historical laboratory where it was com- 
pounded, and show him, or nearly so, the secrets of 
its composition. Can it do any thing of this sort 
with Christianity? Can it tell from what schools 
the various elements of its marvellous doctrine 
came? — from what sources ^its life germinated? 
The character of Mohammed, truly great and won- 
derful as it is, is a perfectly natural character, 
formed under influences and moulded by conditions 
which we can observe and understand. The char- 
acter of Christ — can we explain it in any natural 
manner ? Can we unfold its development, and show 
how it grew up ? 

It is perfectly fair to ask such questions, and to 
insist upon an answer to them. If we cannot get a 
satisfactory answer, we have, at least, cleared the 
way for the explanation which Christianity offers of 
itself. 

II. What is this explanation ? "What are the 
claims of the gospel? It professes to be a super- 
natural revelation — a direct and special communica- 
tion from God in the person and teaching of Jesus 
of Nazareth, and in the inspired teaching of his 
apostles. In attestation of these claims, it presents 
a series of miraculous facts attending its announce- 



THE CHKISTIAN EVIDENCES. 51 

ment, especially the great miraculous fact of the 
resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Are these 
facts ? This might seem a simple question ; yet, in 
reality, it is a very difficult and complicated one, as 
will afterwards appear, when w~e examine the steps 
which its discussion involves. 

III. But Christianity must not only vindicate its 
Divine origin in history. It must, moreover, show 
its Divine power in the soul and life of man. It 
must vindicate itself as the highest truth — as the 
only comprehensive philosophy. It is of its very 
essence thus to prove its Divine origin by its Divine 
grandeur and efficacy. 

The Christian evidences, therefore, may be reck- 
oned and named as follows : 
I. The Indieect Witness. 
II. The Dieect "Witness — Mieacles.* 

III. The Inteenal Witness. 

Each of these lines of argument will claim from 
us a brief chapter. No one will suppose that we 
make any pretensions to treat them exhaustively, or 
in any sense completely. This is quite beyond our 
present scope — quite beside our present purpose. 
We wish merely to set up a few guide-posts for the 
inquiring. The thoughts of young men must be 
often turned in this direction, and we should like to 
point them where they may find some clear and sat- 
isfactory issue to their thoughts. 

* The argument from prophecy opens up a far too extended 
field of discussion, nor is it at all necessary for our purpose. 




I NDIRECT 



ITNESS. 




'HE question of the origin of Christianity 
is one of grand interest in a purely his- 
torical point of view. What do we make 
of it? If we refuse to accept its super- 
natural origin, of what explanation does 
it admit? 

Modern rationalistic inquiry has done something 
to simplify this question. The picture given in the 
gospels is now acknowledged on all hands to repre- 
sent, if not a reality, yet a true growth of ideas. 
All notion of vulgar imposture has long since van- 
ished. Whether or not the Christ of the gospels 
lived and died as there described, the conception 
was not invented by priests to deceive men. It is a 
genuine product of history. This is the very lowest 
ground from which we are required to set out. The 
Christ of the gospels is a phenomenon to be ex- 
plained, and not a fiction to be sneered at. The 
infidelity which sneered rather than argued is no 
more, or at least needs no attention here. Down 
from the dawn of our era there shines a light which 
has enlightened the world. The radiance which 
streams from it has touched with its glory every 



THE INDIEECT WITNESS. 53 

eminence of human thought and every heroism of 
cultivated affection. We cannot get quit of the 
questions, Whence, and what is it ? 

Naturalism is not without its answer to these 
questions. Let us hear what it has to say. Ac- 
cording to it, Christianity must be regarded in the 
main as a mere development of Judaism. The gos- 
pel of St. Matthew is its primitive expression, and 
the Sermon on the Mount its proper type. Jesus 
of Nazareth was merely a Jew of distinguished wis- 
dom, who had the penetration to discern the moral 
truth that lay concealed in the official and popular 
faith of the Jews, and who had the courage to un- 
veil and proclaim this truth. All of the miraculous 
which surrounds him w r as merely the idealizing 
dream of his followers after his death — the apothe- 
osis which their fond faith and devotional enthusi- 
asm accorded to him. The Christianity of the 
church since its organization is to be attributed to 
St. Paul rather than to Christ. It was not fully 
developed till the middle of the second century, 
when the gospel of St. John came forth — so they 
say — to crown the religious structure which had 
been long rearing amid the contentions of opposing 
teachers. 

Such is something like the famous Tubingen the- 
ory of the origin of Christianity, which Strauss first 
enunciated, and w r hich Baur, with the most wonder- 
ful misapplication of genius, has sought in various 
forms to elaborate and expound. It has appeared 



54 BEGINNING LIFE. 

with slight modifications in our own country. It 
may be found asserted or implied in Reviews that 
circulate in our families, and are much in the hands 
of young men. "Whatever be the modifications with 
which it is argued, the meaning is very much the 
same. Christianity is but a development of Juda- 
ism, appearing in its first form in the Sermon on the 
Mount, and worked up into something of a theologi- 
cal system by the learning of St. Paul, and the the- 
osophic imagination of the writer of the fourth gos- 
pel. Traditionary Judaism, rabbinical culture, and 
Alexandrian platonism, or pseudo-platonism, were 
the ingredients which went to make the composite 
gospel that was destined to subdue the world. 

The sources indicated are at least the only pos- 
sible sources out of which Christianity could have 
sprung. And the advantage of this daring specula- 
tion is, that it fixes us down to certain facts. It 
tries to take us up to the opening life of Christian- 
ity ; and refusing to own the Divine fountain whence 
it flows, points to certain rills trickling from older 
fountains of thought, which may have grown into it. 
Let us see whether they could. 

Setting out with the gospel of St. Matthew as 
the expression of primitive Christian doctrine, does 
it warrant the interpretation put upon it ? Grant- 
ed, for the sake of argument, that this gospel is the 
first rudimentary form of Christianity, does it seem 
to come naturally out of Judaism ? Could any mere 
process of purifying distillation have brought the 



THE INDIRECT WITNESS. 55 

Sermon on the Mount out of the traditional ethics 
of the Jews ? This sermon is at least in the face of 
Pharisees and Sadducees alike; it could not have 
been learned in any of their schools. It does not 
read as if it had been learned in any school ; but as 
the voice of One speaking with authority. A new 
spirit breathes in it — a new light and power ema- 
nate from it. It has none of the tentative air of a 
mere enlightened teacher of morals; it does not 
flash with mere gleams of genius ; it shows no mis- 
takes and no confusions ; but from first to last it is 
a high and solemn announcement — clear, calm, pen- 
etrating, and compact throughout. It is the speech 
of One who felt himself abiding in a central light of 
truth, from which all human duty, in its multiplied 
relations, seems plain and consistent. There is a 
confidence of tone, therefore, and a strength of lan- 
, guage here and there, which may excite cavil, but 
which challenge the keenest inquiry. A peculiarly 
divine Spirit seems to compass it all, and bind it 
into a perfect expression of truth. 

■ But, farther, it is not merely the Sermon on the 
Mount, and such morality as it unfolds, that we find 
in St. Matthew's gospel. Do we not as well find 
there, although not in so striking a shape as in the 
gospel of St. John, all the characteristic elements of 
evangelical doctrine ? Like all the other gospels, it 
attributes to Christ the forgiveness of sins, and puts 
in his mouth language (Matt. 10:32, 33; 11:27; 
22 : 45) which, from a mere Jewish point of view, 



56 BEGINNING LIFE. 

could be considered nothing else than blasphemy; 
nay, which was so esteemed by the Jews when he 
appeared before the tribunal of Caiaphas (Matt. 
27 : 63-65.) It is impossible to accept the first gos- 
pel as a trustworthy record of primitive Christianity, 
and not to recognize the meaning of those sayings 
in which he calls himself the Son of Man, and 
asserts a relationship with the Father which only 
his divinity can adequately explain. This gospel, 
moreover, surrounds his death and resurrection with 
the same mystery and Divine grandeur as the 
others, and seems to claim for them an equal dog- 
matic value. It is well to speak of a Hebrew gos- 
pel and a Hebrew Christianity; and there are no 
doubt distinctions of great interest and moment 
between the various gospels ; but it is to carry such 
distinctions to a quite unwarranted and arbitrary 
extent, to assert that the Christ of St. Matthew is 
not substantially the same as the Christ of St. Luke, 
and even of St. John. He is seen in somewhat 
diverse aspects in all the four gospels ; more as the 
Messiah and King of Israel in St. Matthew; more 
as the 'Teacher and Friend in St. Luke and St. 
Mark; more as the Divine "Word in St. John; but 
in all he is " declared to be the Son of God with 
power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the 
resurrection from the dead." This he j.s no less 
really in St. Matthew than in St. John ; and even if 
we were granted nothing more than this primitive 
gospel, we would find it utterly impossible to recon- 



THE INDIEECT WITNESS. 57 

cile it with a mere natural development of the char- 
acter and doctrine of Christ. 

But what of Alexandria, and the peculiar form 
of speculative Judaism that there sprang up ? Could 
this not have been the soil of the gospel? Could 
the seed which has grown into the tree of life not 
have started here ? It is the only supposition which 
can claim a moment's attention. Yet it is utterly 
incapable of showing face when really looked at. 
We know what Alexandria was, and what Alexan- 
drian religious speculation in the hands of the Jews 
was at the time of our Lord, as well as, or rather 
better than, we know what Jerusalem and its reli- 
gious parties w r ere at the same time. Philo, the 
great and comprehensive representative of Alexan- 
drian Jewish speculation, was the contemporary of 
Jesus of Nazareth. He might have met, and even 
spoken with our Lord in a visit to the temple of 
Jerusalem which he describes. There are surface 
analogies between his doctrine and certain aspects 
of Christianity. Yet it is impossible to conceive 
any thing in reality more different. The one is 
speculative, the other practical; the one is ideal, the 
other real; the one is a philosophy or system of 
knowledge, the othgr is a religion or "rule of life." 
Philo is in every thing the philosopher, only work- 
ing on certain inherited data of religious thought. 
As one has said who will not be supposed to over- 
rate the distinctions that separate him from the 
gospel, " Aristotle, Plato the skeptic, the Pythago- 

3* 



58 BEGINNING LIFE. 

rean, the Stoic, are Philo's real masters, from whom 
he derives his form of thought, his methodical 
arrangement, his rhetorical diction, and many of his 
moral lessons." His is " the spirit which puts knowl- 
edge in the place of truth, which confounds moral 
with physical purity, which seeks to attain the per- 
fection of the soul in abstraction and separation 
from matter, which attempts to account for evil by 
removing it to a distance from God, letting it drop 
by a series of descents from heaven to earth, which 
regards religion as an initiation into a mystery." Of 
all this there is not a trace in the gospels. Of the 
abhorrence of matter, which pervaded every form 
of oriental speculation, we find nothing. 

"Another aspect," says the same writer* — and 
we prefer putting the matter in words which cannot 
be supposed unduly urged — "another aspect in which 
the religion of Philo differs from the religion of the 
gospel is, that the one is the religion of the few, and 
the other of the many. The refined mysticism which 
Philo i aught as the essence of religion is impossible 
for the poor. That the slave, ignorant as the brute, 
w r as equally with himself an object of solicitude to 
the God of Moses, would have been incredible to 
the great Jewish teacher of Alexandria. Neither 
had he any idea of a scheme of providence reach- 
ing to all men everywhere. Once or twice he holds 
up the Gentile as a reproof to the Jew ; nothing was 
less natural to his thoughts than that the Gentiles 

s Professor Jowett— Epistles of St. Paul, vol. 1. 508. 



THE INDIEECT WITNESS. 59 

were the true Israel. His gospel is not that of 
humanity, but of philosophers and of ascetics. In- 
stead of converting the world, he would have men 

retreat from the world In another way, also, 

the narrowness of Philo may be contrasted with the 
first Christian teaching. The object of the gospel is 
real, present, substantial, and the truths which are 
taught are very near to human nature — truths which 
meet its wants and soothe its sorrows. But in Philo 
the object is shadowy, distant, indistinct — whether 
an idea or a fact, we scarcely know — one which is 
in no degree commensurate with the wants of man- 
kind in general, or even with those of a particular 
individual. As we approach, it vanishes away; if 
we analyze and criticise, it will dissolve in our 
hands ; taken without criticism, it cannot exert much 
influence over the mind and conduct." 

It is true that Philo speaks of the Logos or 
Word of God. This is to him, as to St. John, the 
Revelation of God, and he might even use the apos- 
tle's words, "In the beginning was the Word, and 
the Word was with God, and the Word was God." 
But that which is above all characteristic of the 
gospel — the incarnation of the Word in the person 
of Jesus of Nazareth — is wholly foreign to his mode 
of thought. He would have shrunk from the idea 
of the Logos being one whom " our eyes have seen 
and our hands have handled." "He would have 
turned away from the death of Christ." 

From such a system as this how could the gos- 



60 BEGINNING LIFE. 

pel spring, or even the idea of Christ's life and 
death? "It was mystical and dialectical, not moral 
or spiritual; for the few, not for the many; for the 
Jewish Therapeutse, not for all mankind. It was a 
literature, not a life ; instead of a few short sayings, 
' mighty to the pulling down of strongholds/ it luxu- 
riated in a profusion of rhetoric. It spoke of a Holy 
Ghost, of a Lord, of a Divine man, of a first and 
second Adam, of the faith of Abraham, of bread 
which came down from heaven; but knew nothing 
of the God who made of one blood all nations of the 
earth, of the victory over sin and death, of the cross 
of Christ. It was a picture, a shadow, a surface, a 
cloud above catching the rising light as he appeared. 
It was the reflection of a former world, not the 
birth of a new one." 

"Where, then, shall we look for £ny natural origin 
of Christianity? In what soil of previous thought 
or moral culture can we trace its roots? We dig 
and turn up every soil of the old world with the 
same result. It is not there. Anticipation and 
preparation we can trace everywhere — in Hellenism, 
in Alexandrianism, in Orientalism — above all, in the 
old Hebrew literature, which fed the souls of such 
as Simeon and Anna, "waiting for the Consolation 
of Israel." But nowhere can we find the germs 
which, without further Divine planting, could have 
grown up into the tree of life. Nowhere can we 
trace the "root springing out of the dry ground;" 
and yet we know it did. Nowhere do w e see spirit- 



THE INDIKECT WITNESS. 61 

ual forces in operation which could conceivably have 
generated such a character and such a doctrine as 
those of Christ; and yet we know that that charac- 
ter and doctrine came forth as a "light of the world." 
While Jerusalem was sunk in formalism, or sensu- 
ality, or fanatical bigotry, and Alexandria was lost in 
theosophic dreams, and Athens in eclectic idolatry 
or curious inquiry, and Borne in lust of dominion 
or mere literary pride, this Light arose. Amid a 
despised and unmoral people there suddenly sprang 
up a moral power, which has proved itself the most 
exalted, the most' vivifying, the most freshly enduring 
the world has ever seen. Arising in the East, it has 
proved peculiarly the strength and life of Western 
civilization, adapting itself to every emergency of 
human opinion and every crisis of human history; 
and when seeming to be worn out in the long con- 
flict with human folly, ignorance, and crime, rising 
into new vigor, clothing itself with fresh powers, and 
taking to itself nobler victories. 

But why, it may be asked, should not a great 
moral genius have arisen in Judea eighteen hundred 
years ago? Why should not a Teacher of tran- 
scendent worth have sprung from the decaying stock 
of the old Hebrew culture, although Pharisee and 
Sadducee alike disowned him, and no school can 
claim the credit of him ; a Teacher who was capa- 
ble, by his own natural powers, of reading a new 
meaning into old truths, and inspiring them with a 
new spirit and life ? Why not ? This is the ques- 



62 BEGINNING LIFE. 

tlon put in the most favorable manner for the Ra- 
tionalist, and which we are by no means bound to 
accept. For it is his business to prove the affirma- 
tive, rather thai! ours to show the negative. Yet, 
taking it up from this point, we answer, Because 
there are no symptoms whatever of the rising of 
such a genius. The growth of moral ideas, like 
every other growth, can be traced first in "the bud, 
then in the ear, then in the full corn in the ear." 
"We can trace the rise of Socrates, and the rise of 
Mohammed, to take two widely different illustra- 
tions, in antecedent moral and social conditions, 
which did not indeed make them, but which explain 
them. All this connection fails us with Jesus of 
Nazareth. We see no hints of such a phenomenon 
in the antecedent tendencies of the Jewish mind. 
The very capacity of appreciating moral truth had 
well-nigh perished in this mind still more the capa- 
city of originating it, and clothing it in a creative 
form, which should be the seed of a new life for 
humanity. 

The Christ of the gospels stands alone. As a 
moral portrait, he is without prototype or parallel — 
coming out from the dimness of the past a sudden 
and perfect creation. We look around, and in all 
the gallery of history there is no likeness to him. 
" So meek, so mild, so pitiful, yet so sublime, so ter- 
rible in his perfect sanctity." There are noble and 
magnanimous countenances — but none such as his. 
There are splendid characters — but they are pale 



THE INDIKECT WITNESS. 63 

beside the lustre of his purity and beneficence. The 
quaint rectitude of a Socrates, and the hardy virtue 
of a Confucius, are dim and poor and imperfect 
beside the holy sympathy, the loving sacrifice, the 
magnanimous wisdom, that shone forth in Jesus of 
Nazareth. To suppose such a character to be a 
natural development of Judaism seems among the 
wildest of dreams. 

But shall we, then, suppose that such a charac- 
ter never really existed, save in the imagination of 
the followers of Jesus? Does this free us of the 
difficulty? If it be hard, nay, impossible to con- 
ceive the natural development of such a character 
in point of fact, is it not still more impossible to 
conceive the ideal of such a character forming itself 
in the imagination of a few poor and ignorant Jews? 
Where were they to gather its elements? — from 
their dreams of a Messianic kingdom and glory? — 
from their broken and expiring traditions? — from 
their own wild hopes and vague enthusiasm ? There 
were no other sources from which the ideal could 
come ; there are no others suggested. Surely there 
never was a beautiful creation, an ideal more per- 
fect than poet has ever formed, or philosophy con- 
ceived, ascribed to so strange a parentage. To be- 
lieve in such a possibility of divinely harmonious 
imagination in four writers widely separated from 
one another, with no remarkable peculiarities of 
genius, with common peculiarities of weakness, 
according to the supposition — for they all equally 



64 BEGINNING LIFE. 

believe in the miracles they describe — is harder than 
any belief that orthodoxy demands of us. One wri- 
ter might be conceived inventing a lofty ideal, but 
that four such writers should unconsciously com- 
bine to form the ideal of the gospels is utterly incon- 
ceivable. 

Then look at the age. It is the most unroman- 
tic and unmythical of ages — critical and specula- 
tive in Philo and in Plutarch — stern and denuncia- 
tory in Tacitus and in Juvenal — didactic and de- 
scriptive in Josephus and Pliny — everywhere inge- 
nious and clever in its wickedness, but nowhere im- 
aginative — utterly without creative ideality. Could 
three unknown writers have given us the portrait of 
the synoptic gospels in such an age ? Could the 
marvellous ideal of the fourth gospel, higher than, 
yet perfectly consonant with the others, have come 
from a mere teacher at Ephesus in the first or sec- 
ond century ? We know what sort of religious lit- 
erature the second century produced — nay, what 
sort of religious romance it produced. Can any 
thing be more unlike the gospel of St. John than 
the "Shepherd of Hermas"? 

What is our conclusion then ? We are shut up 
to the Divine origin of Christianity. We search 
everywhere for its natural fountain-head, and can- 
not find it. We turn to theories of unbelief, and 
find them dissolve to our touch. What is left, but 
that we listen to the gospel itself ? 




JHB J) 



IRECT 



J 



ITNESS. 




'HE special evidence for the Divine ori- 
gin of Christianity must always lie in 
an appeal to the miraculous facts which 
lie at its basis, Whatever may be the 
difficulties surrounding these facts to mod- 
ern contemplation, it is perfectly evident that they 
are not to be got over. They are not to be ex- 
plained away either by any sleight of naturalism, 
or any ingenious system of ideology. They cannot 
be relegated to some vague domain of faith, and 
held in the mid -air of a religious revery which 
does not know what to make of them. They must 
either be accepted or denied as facts. Their proof, 
as such, is either sufficient or insufficient. They are 
either parts of authentic history, or they are not. 

We have already seen that they cannot be set 
aside on any presumption of impossibility. It is 
not competent to do this without denying altogether 
a Theistic interpretation of nature and history; and 
this interpretation is what our reason and our moral 
being alike demand. Supposing that there is a 
Supreme Power distinct from nature, and ruling it 



66 BEGINNING LIFE. 

and all things, then beyond question this power may 
interrupt the sequences which himself has estab- 
lished for any wise and good purpose. The ques- 
tion is cleared from preconception, and remains one 
of fact. It was peculiarly necessary to look at it in 
the former point of view to begin with, because it is 
to this point of view that the question will always 
run back, and find its chief interest for the reason. 
In our time, discussion has more than ever centred 
here. But it is now necessary to look at it in the 
latter point of view as a question of fact, and to see 
upon what basis of distinct historical evidence the 
Christian miracles rest. 

It is of the very nature of such an inquiry as 
this to run into an accumulation of details and 
minute questions of the balance of evidence, and 
the weight to be given to special circumstances as 
they come before us. The strength of the historical 
evidence for the Christian miracles unquestionably 
lies in the combination of particulars which point to 
one conclusion, and leave the mind at length satis- 
fied that there can be no other conclusion. It would 
be altogether beside our purpose, however, to make 
any attempt to set forth these particulars here. It 
is doubtful, indeed, how far any mere book of evi- 
dences can do this. Such a task, rightly viewed, is 
one for the student to enter upon himself and sift 
to the bottom, irrespective of summary representa- 
tions on one side or the other. All we can do here 
is to indicate the broad lines or issues of the evi- 



THE DIBECT WITNESS. 67 

dence, and especially the scheme of argument into 
which the facts form themselves, and by which they 
bear upon our credit and assent. 

Whether or not the Christian miracles must be 
accepted as facts, is plainly a question of testimony. 
This the apostles themselves constantly felt. They 
continually put the case in this way; and particu- 
larly appeal to the great miracle of the resurrection 
as the express ground of their mission, the authori- 
tative warrant of their preaching. "This Jesus 
hath God raised up," says St. Peter in his Pente- 
costal sermon, "whereof we all are witnesses" Again, 
with an unhesitating allusion to facts known to them 
as well as to him — the air of reality breathing in 
every word — " The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, 
and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified 
his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied 
him in the presence of Pilate, when he was deter- 
mined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One 
and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted 
unto you ; and killed the Prince of Life, whom God 
hath raised up from the dead; whereof we are wit- 
nesses" Equally so in his address to Cornelius: 
"And we are witnesses of all things which he did 
both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem." 
The same ground is virtually occupied by St. Paul 
and all the apostles. They appeal to facts which 
they themselves knew, and to which they testified, 
especially to the great fact of the resurrection. It 
is quite evident that, in their opinion, the claims of 



68 BEGINNING LIFE. 

Christianity hang upon the admission of these facts. 
If not admitted — if the alleged facts conld not sub- 
stantiate themselves — their cause seemed a hopeless 
one. "If there be no resurrection of the dead, then 
is Christ not risen. And if Christ be not risen, then 
is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." 

The Christian miracles, therefore, axe facts to be 
proved, and the proof offered is the personal wit- 
ness or testimony of the apostles. This testimony 
must be examined and sifted like any other testi- 
mony. What is it worth ? "What are its elements 
of trustworthiness or veracity? Suppose you find 
men come forward to bear witness to any remarka- 
ble fact or series of facts, you inquire into the char- 
acter of the men, their possible motives — disinter- 
ested or not — their personal relation to the fact — 
immediate or not. In short, all testimony must be 
thoroughly examined and weighed, and is valid or 
not according to certain principles of sense and rea- 
son, which, however difficult to define, are intelligi- 
ble by all. In this respect, the evidence for the 
Christian miracles is on the level of all other evi- 
dence. From the very remarkable character of the 
facts, it must in truth be criticised with a special 
keenness, and judged with a special severity. 

But in the case of the evidence for the Christian 
miracles, as in the case of all historical testimony, 
there is a presumption of an important kind. The 
testimony is not immediately before us. It survives 
only in written records. The living witnesses are long 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 69 

since gone ; we cannot call them into court and put 
their veracity to the proof by cross question of their 
reports, and examination of their personal look and 
manner. We have only the affidavits, so to speak, 
which they left behind, and which have been hand- 
ed down to us. First of all, therefore, it is plain we 
must prove these affidavits. We must show that the 
statements which they left were really their own 
statements. In other words, the genuineness of the 
evangelical testimony must be settled before we in- 
vestigate the value and force of it. If any doubt 
rest upon this preliminary point, the conclusions we 
draw would be vitiated from the foundation. Sup- 
posing a witness in an important case to have died, 
and his dying declaration to have been put in in 
evidence, it is plain that this declaration must be 
proved to have really proceeded from him, before it 
can be held to be evidence at all. In the same man- 
ner, the gospel of St. John — shall we say, for it 
gives force to select a particular example — must be 
shown to be really his testimony, to have proceeded 
from him, and truly to represent him or his age. It 
professes to do so in the most solemn manner. 
" This is the disciple," it says at the close, "which 
testifieth of these things, and wrote these things, 
and w r e believe that his testimony is true." This 
profession of authorship must be substantiated by 
reasonable evidence before the substance of the tes- 
timony claims our notice. 

The question of the genuineness of the evangeli- 



70 BEGINNING LIFE. 

cal testimony, therefore, must be determined as a 
prime condition of the validity of that testimony. 
This question, in fact, very much involves the whole 
subject, as it now stands in the light of higher and 
more comprehensive methods of historical investi- 
gation than those which prevailed in the last cen- 
tury. There is now no longer any dispute as to the 
character of the apostles. The talk of imposture, as 
we formerly said, has died away, or only survives in 
obscure corners of infidelity, from which all rational 
investigation is banished. There is no historical 
student doubts that the men who planted Christian- 
ity in the world were men of noble and honest char- 
acter, and of self-denying zeal and labors — men 
who profoundly believed their own testimony, and 
lived and died to show their faith in it — men, to use 
the words of Paley's well-known thesis, who, " pro- 
fessing to be original witnesses of the Christian mir- 
acles, passed their lives in labors, dangers, and suf- 
ferings, voluntarily undergone, in attestation of the 
accounts which they delivered, and solely in conse- 
quence of their belief in these accounts ; and who 
also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules 
of conduct." All this may be said to be beyond 
dispute. So far the "trial of the witnesses" is un- 
necessary. And to this extent, perhaps, some ridi- 
cule of the Christian apologies of the past century 
may be excused. It was the thought of a hard, 
superficial, and unhistorical age — unhistorical in 
spirit, notwithstanding the one or two great histo- 



THE DIEECT WITNESS. 71 

ries which it produced — to conceive of the possibil- 
ity of Christianity being an imposture, and the apos- 
tles being the impostors. A truer, more correct, 
and more comprehensive spirit of historical inquiry 
has dissipated every such thought. It is universally 
recognized that it would be impossible to account 
for any great movement in human history on such 
principles. The very conception of the movement, 
and the undeniable character of it throughout, im- 
plies principles of a totally different kind. 

The real, and well-nigh the whole inquiry, there- 
fore, has come to be, not as to the character of the 
apostles, but as to their genuine historical position ; 
not what they were, but who they were, and how far 
we truly possess the accounts of what they said and 
did. These are the only points of inquiry that really 
divide those that are entitled to have any opinion 
on the subject. 

This will be more apparent in carrying out the 
argument to a conclusion. In the mean time, let us 
turn to the important point which it involves as to 
the genuineness of the gospels. 

I. GENUINENESS OE THE GOSPELS. 

This is really the essential point ; and modern 
unbelief has sufficiently recognized this by directing 
its main attacks in this quarter. It has been the 
pride of German criticism to analyze with the most 
rigid severity all the particulars of evidence for the 
genuineness of the gospels, and to expose every 



72 BEGINNING LIFE. 

weakness that they may seem to show. Jt has cer- 
tainly done its worst in this respect, and with a 
skill which can never be rivalled. 

It must be granted — every one who knows the 
subject will grant that the inquiry into the genuine- 
ness of the gospels is not without its difficulties. It 
is by no .means the easy-going question that it 
appears in some popular seminaries. It has its 
elements of uncertainty, and presents many nice 
points of criticism which cannot be discussed here. 
But it also presents certain main features which may 
hm plainly set forth. The nature of the question 
will be apparent, and the conclusive force of the 
evidence upon which the Christian affirmation rests 
will abundantly show itself — making every allowance 
for difficulties. 

The inquiry, in its direct form, is to this effect : 
What is the evidence that the gospels were really 
the production of their professed authors ? Tech- 
nically, a book is said to be genuine when it was 
really written by the author whose name it bears. 
Certain plays of Shakespeare are universally admit- 
ted to be genuine. The evidence that he himself 
really composed them is satisfactory to every mind. 
Others, such as the three parts of "Henry VI.," 
" Titus Andronicus," and "Pericles," are of doubt- 
ful genuineness — that is to say, it remains in some 
degree a question whether he was really their au- 
thor, or at least their sole author. Again, there are 
eight books of the "Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity" 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 73 

attributed to Hooker, five of which are beyond 
question genuine. They were published under his 
name in circumstances which leave no doubt that 
they really came from his pen. The remaining 
three books were published after his death, and in 
circumstances which led to suspicions of their hav- 
ing been tampered with. It remains a question 
whether these three books, and especially the sixth, 
really represent Hooker's opinions, although no one 
can doubt that he was, m a general sense, the au- 
thor of them, as well as of the five published in his 
life. These two illustrations may serve to show 
something of what is meant wlien it is proposed to 
inquire into the genuineness of a book. Genuine- 
ness may be vitiated, either by a lack of evidence 
connecting it with the supposed author, or by cor- 
ruption of what the author has really written. This 
is the question, strictly so called, and these cases 
* serve very well to illustrate it. 

But the question in regard to the gospels is sub- 
stantially broader, and not exactly met by these 
illustrations. For example, whatever may be the 
doubts as to Shakespeare having been the author of 
three parts of " Henry VI.," there can be no doubt 
that they belong to the Shakesperian age. They 
represent the same epoch in our literature as his 
early plays; they are the expressions of the same 
phase of our national intellectual life. There can 
be no question as to this. In the same manner, 
there can be no question that all the books of 

Bediming Life. 4 



74 BEGINNING LIFE. 

Hooker's Polity belong to the same age, whether he 
was really in a strict sense the author of them all, 
or not. Now it is this broader rather than the nar- 
rower view which may be said to cover the case of 
the gospels. 

If the gospels can be carried back to the first 
century, the direct authorship in every case is not 
absolutely vital. Whether the existing gospel of 
St. Matthew, for example, is really the direct pro- 
duction of the apostle, or only the translation of an 
original Hebrew gospel of the apostle by some 
friend or associate, would not really affect the con- 
clusion at issue. Thfere it is — a record of what hap- 
pened in the knowledge and experience of the apos- 
tles, by one who was undoubtedly their familiar, 
and whose veracity is to be tested according to all 
the circumstances of the case. This is the very 
profession of St. Luke. It seemed "good to him" — 
although not an apostle himself — "having had a 
perfect understanding of all things from the first," to 
write them in order to his friend Theophilus, that he 
might " know the certainty of those things wherein 
he had been instructed." The real question here is 
w r hether this profession be a genuine profession on 
the part of a Christian writer of the first age, or, in 
other w T ords, whether the document which it opens 
can be traced up to the first century, rather than 
the more technical inquiry as to whether the writer 
was St. Luke, the companion of St. Paul, or some 
other. Even in the case of the fourth gospel, the 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 75 

fact of its existence in the end of the apostolic age 
is really the important question. Supposing this 
settled, its authorship cannot well admit of a doubt. 

The nature of the evidence, then, which must be 
sought to establish the genuineness of the gospels 
is obvious. We must get traces of their existence 
all along from the present time to the apostolic age. 
In point of real exigency, we must get traces of 
their existence from a point in the third, or the end 
of the second century, when it is not possible for 
any one to doubt that they did exist on to the time 
of the apostles. It is needless, and apt to be mis- 
leading, to confound together such evidence as that 
of Eusebius, of Origen, and Hippolytus, with the 
evidence of earlier writers. There can be no ques- 
tion of the existence of the gospels in the time of 
Origen. One might, with as much reason, require 
evidence of their existence in the time of Augustine, 
or of Gregory the Great, or of Calvin. Origen 
wrote commentaries on them no less than Calvin, 
and prepared a text of them. 

"We may ascend the stream of Christian history 
farther, and say that there can be no question of 
the existence of the gospels in the time of Irenseus, 
Clemens of Alexandria, and of Tertullian of Car- 
thage — 170-200 — the fifth generation from the 
beginning of the apostolic era — the third from the 
termination of it. It is impossible to read either of 
these writers without feeling that they wrote in the 
full light of the gospel history; and, more than this, 



76 BEGINNING LIFE. 

that they were familiar with our gospels, under the 
same names that they bear to us. One well known 
passage of Irenseus is so emphatic, that we shall 
content ourselves with quoting it: "After that our 
Lord rose from the dead," he says, "and they [the 
apostles] were endowed from above with the power 
of the Holy Ghost coming down ' upon them, they 
received a perfect knowledge of all things. They 
went forth to all the ends of the earth, preaching 
good tidings from God, and announcing celestial 
peace to all men, one and all of them being alike 
endowed with the gospel of God. St. Matthew, then 
among the Hebrews, put forth an evangelical record 
in their own language, while Peter and Paul were 
preaching at Borne, and founding the church there. 
After their departure, St. Mark, the disciple and in- 
terpreter of St. Peter, delivered to us in writing the 
things that had been preached by St. Peter ; and 
St. Luke, the companion of St. Paul, put down in a 
book the gospel preached by him. Afterward, John, 
the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon his 
breast, likewise published a gospel w T hile he dwelt at 
Ephesus."* 

The existence of the four gospels, then, toward 
the close of the second century, is an undoubted 
fact of history. There is no fact of history more ca- 
pable of proof The evidence upon which we accept, 

f Contra Hsereses, lib. 1, cap. 1, Ed. Steeren, 423. The first 
part of the passage is not preserved in the Greek ; but the second 
and important part, regarding the gospels, is. 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. * 77 

without hesitation, the productions of many of the 
classic authors, is not to be compared for a moment 
in fullness or detail to that which can be furnished 
at this stage for the genuineness of the gospels. 
Any difficulties that the subject involves, therefore, 
begin higher up than this. There cannot be said to 
be a question up to this point. 

Now, before ascending a farther stage, to the 
second generation from the end of the apostolic 
era — the age of Justin Martyr — let us notice what 
we have really gained in the universally admitted 
existence of the gospels at this later stage. We 
have found them at Lyons (Irenseus was Bishop of 
Lyons) — at Alexandria — at Carthage; and not 
merely diffused at these widely separated centres 
of Grseco-Roman civilization, but held in authority 
at them all. Tertullian and Clemens receive them 
with the same reverence, the same sacred regard, as 
Irenaeus. They are "evangelic and apostolic wri- 
tings," "sacred books," "our digesta." It is obvi- 
ously impossible that they could have suddenly 
started into such a position of authority as this. 
The statements of Irenseus, Tertullian, and Clemens, 
are, in their very nature, evidence, not merely that 
the gospels existed in their time, but that they had 
existed long before their time. These writers had 
no suspicion of the possibility of a recent origin of 
the gospels. They express their belief that they 
belong to the- apostolic age, and were the production 
of the apostolic men to whom they were ascribed, 



78 * BEGINNING LIFE. 

not as a conclusion which they had argued out, but 
as a plain matter of fact, which they knew beyond 
all dispute, and which the church universally recog- 
nized. Is it. conceivable, in the face of what they 
say, that the gospel of St. John could have been a 
Gnostic production of the middle of the second cen- 
tury ? Do they speak as men living in the midst, or 
even in the wake of the fermenting process through 
which, according to this theory, the new religion 
must have been passing ? There never were men 
spoke less in this way than Irenseus and Tertullian. 
They are already the dogmatists of the new faith, 
the men of tradition, who look backivard to an a%- 
thoritative Scripture — an " evangelical canon." 

Carrying with us, then, this fair inference, we 
take an upward step to the age of Justin Martyr — 
130-170. Here, it may be said, is the great knot of 
the inquiry into the genuineness of the gospels. 
The peculiar language of Justin Martyr has intro- 
duced the main element of uncertainty into the 
question. He nowhere quotes our gospels by name. 
He nowhere mentions the gospel of St. Matthew, 
nor of St. Mark, nor of St. John, as the sources 
from which he draws his lengthened statements of 
the evangelical history and the evangelical institu- 
tions. On the contrary, he constantly refers to 
certain sources which he styles, not " gospels " of 
St. Matthew or of St. John, but "Memoirs of the 
Apostles."* The question is, Were these "Memoirs 

* ''AnofLVTifiovevfiaTa t&v diroaToTiuv. The words a naXelrai evayye- 



THE DIEECT WITNESS. 79 

of the Apostles" our gospels? In the time of Lard- 
ner and of Paley little doubt was supposed to exist 
that they were. But since modern inquiry has been 
turned to the subject, it has been greatly argued, 
and an equally confident decision arrived at on 
opposite sides. Bishop Marsh did not hesitate to 
declare in the negative, "that Justin did not quote 
our gospels." 

As a question of mere criticism, it must be held 
to be a difficult one; but there are certain general 
considerations which seem to incline the balance of 
evidence very strongly in the affirmative, notwith- 
standing the confident statement of Bishop Marsh, 
and the conclusion of many German scholars. 

1. The numerous passages which Justin quotes 
from his "Memoirs of the Apostles," although fail- 
ing in verbal coincidence throughout with the text 
of our gospels, yet everywhere substantially agree 
with this text, with the exception of two very unim- 
portant particulars. There is no difference in the 
outline of facts given by Justin from the Memoirs 
and the outline of facts given in the gospels. The 
verbal coincidence with the texts of the gospels is 
sometimes exact, and sometimes so great as to ap- 
pear exact in a translation ; while Justin quotes from 
the Old Testament with something of the same de- 
gree of verbal inexactness. Farther, the account 

fact,, Apol. 1, p. 98, are supposed by many — Bishop Marsh among 
others — to be an interpolation, and nothing can be founded on 
them. 



80 BEGINNING LIFE. 

which he gives of the origin of his "Memoirs" cor- 
responds with the origin of our gospels, namely, that 
two were written by apostles, and two by compan- 
ions of the apostles. 

2. The entire absence of all allusion to "Me- 
moirs of the Apostles," independent of the gospels, 
on the part of Irenseus, or any of the writers of his 
time, strongly militates against the supposition that 
such memoirs could have existed. "What could have 
become of them? The books that Justin quotes 
w T ere evidently authoritative books — sacred writings. 
He mentions that they were read in the assemblies 
of the Christians every Sunday. How is there no 
other trace of them? Supposing them not to be 
our gospels, can we conceive that a series of apos- 
tolic memoirs different from our gospels were known 
to Justin, and to no other writer whatever ? Every 
thing seems against such a supposition. On the 
other hand, is it not very conceivable that a writer 
of Justin's classical peculiarities and training — with 
his head full of Gentile associations and reminis- 
cences — should have preferred to quote the gospels 
under the general name which he makes use of? 
Let it be remembered that he was addressing a hea- 
then emperor, and through him the Gentile world at 
large. It appears consonant both with his charac- 
ter and his purpose, not to have used the peculiar 
Christian name of these documents—if, indeed, this 
name was used before his time— but such a general 
and easily intelligible designation as he has adopted. 



THE DIEECT WITNESS. 81 

3. When we consider the position of Justin in 
relation to that of Irenseus, and the writers of the 
succeeding generation, it seems certain that he must 
have known our gospels. Diffused to Alexandria 
and Lyons and Carthage, and everywhere regarded 
with the same feelings of sacred reverence, it is im- 
possible that a man like Justin, who had travelled 
about in search of spiritual wisdom, who had become 
a Christian after patient inquiry and study of Scrip- 
ture, could have been ignorant of documents which 
had attained such a wide circulation and such a 
unique authority in the age immediately following 
his own. The light of that age must go with us in 
ascending to the time of Justin, and by it we must 
interpret the statements of this writer. The manner 
in which the gospels are spoken of by Irenseus and 
Tertullian is unintelligible without recognizing their 
well-established authority through successive gen- 
erations. The generation of Justin must have known 
them; he himself must have known them; and al- 
though the manner in which he writes does con- 
stitute a difficulty, this difficulty is nothing to that 
of supposing him ignorant of them, while he was 
yet plainly in possession of all the facts they convey. 

When we put all the circumstances together, and 
consider the clear presumption that Justin must 
have known the gospels, with the equally plain pre- 
sumption that such memoirs as he quotes, supposing 
them to have been other than the gospels, must 
have been known to many writers besides himself — 

4* 



82 BEGINNING LIFE. 

of which, however, there is no trace — the evidence 
seems to be as conclusive as such evidence ever can 
be, that the "Memoirs of the Apostles" were noth- 
ing else than our gospels. 

Beyond Justin Martyr, we reach such writers as 
Ignatius and Clemens Bomanus, (who is really with- 
in the apostolic age,) and — what is more important 
than either for our purpose — the fragments of the 
early Gnostics. Any thing like direct allusion to 
the gospels, or quotations from them by name, is 
not to be found in these waiters. But this is only 
what might have been expected. Ignatius and 
Clemens Bomanus both lived in immediate proxim- 
ity to the apostles. The former was a disciple of 
St. John, the latter was a contemporary of St. Paul 
and St. John/ These men knew, therefore, the 
apostolic traditions after the same immediate and 
living manner as the aposlles themselves did. It 
was not so much any record of Christ's sayings and 
doings to which their thoughts turned, as the say- 
ings and doings themselves, surviving in the Chris- 
tian consciousness of their time, and which, they had 
learned at the feet of those who directly reported 
the one and were witnesses of the others. There is 
nothing wonderful in the fact, that men who were 
themselves within the immediate circle of the evan- 
gelical testimony, who were, so to speak, witnesses 
only at second-hand, should not have made any 
formal appeal to documents which merely embodied 
w r hat they themselves knew by heart, and which 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 83 

could not add any thing to their direct personal 
knowledge. 

Such quotations from the gospels as do occur in 
these fathers exactly answer to the views now ex- 
pressed of their position. They are, for the most 
part, brief and striking sayings of our Lord, freely 
given, and as they would occur to a person who had 
learned them by oral instruction rather than the 
study of a document. It is needless to detail these 
quotations. They are known to all Christian schol- 
ars, and may be found indicated in any edition of 
the apostolic fathers.* 

By themselves, however, they do not prove much. 
Looking at them independently of the position of 
the writers, they would not help our inquiry much; 
but looking at the position of the writers, and the 
whole train of thought and association in which 
they occur, they support the broadest conclusions 
we could wish to found upon them. The letters, 
both of Ignatius and Clemens, are unintelligible 
apart from the facts contained in the gospels, and 
the spirit which they reflect. The very existence 
and character of the men themselves are unintelligi- 
ble, save in the light of the gospel history. 

We have mentioned the heretical fragments of 
this age immediately succeeding the apostles, and 
were our purpose that of minute critical inquiry, 

c? Hefele, for example, in his well-known edition, marks them 
all carefully ; and any student would better have recourse to the 
original than to Paley's summaries. 



84 BEGINNING LIFE. 

they would claim a great deal of attention. It must 
suffice simply to say, that even in the view of so 
extremely liberal a theologian as Bunsen, they estab- 
lish quite conclusively the existence of the third and 
fourth gospels about the year 120. "Basilides," he 
says, "not only quotes — besides St. Luke's second 
chapter — the gospel of St. John, it is also evident 
that his whole metaphysical development is an 
attempt to connect a cosmogonic system with St. 
John's prologue, and with the person of Christ." 

Altogether there seems to be an entirely trust- 
worthy, though not throughout its length an equally 
clear line of evidence for the existence of the gos- 
pels from the conspicuous light of the age of Ire- 
nseus to the apostolic era. The more all the facts 
are studied in a fair and unprejudiced spirit, without 
any view to theories of one kind or another, the 
more strongly will the evidence unfold itself in many 
indirect turns, in many combining hints. It is diffi- 
cult, in fact, to convey by a summary statement any 
thing like the full conviction that an impartial and 
comprehensive survey leaves upon the mind ; while 
it is always easy, in the case of such complicated 
evidence, to put forward weak points, and to insinu- 
ate a negative. Yet a substantial line of evidence 
remains after all assaults. The gospels are intelli- 
gible as the productions of the first century — they 
are intelligible in no other way. The various shifts 
that have been made to explain them otherwise, 
'-only render this conclusion the more inevitable. 



THE DIEECT WITNESS. 85 

The mind returns to it, after wandering in the quag- 
mire of critical speculation, with a sensation of 
relief not only moral but intellectual. The reason 
can rest here, if there are still difficulties that keep 
it questioning. Otherwise it is tossed on an angry 
sea of doubt, whose "waters only cast up mire and" 
dirt," 

IT. WOETH OF THE APOSTOLIC TESTI- 
MONY. 

Supposing the genuineness of the gospels estab- 
lished, what is the position occupied by the inqui- 
rer ? He stands face to face with the apostolic age. 
He has ascended to direct converse with St. John at 
Ephesus, and St. Matthew in Palestine, and St. 
Mark, the companion of St. Peter, and St. Luke, 
the friend of St. Paul. What then ? Take the case 
of St. John, as before, for illustration. A single case 
sufficiently answers our purpose, and the question is 
thereby cleared of some confusion. The case of St. 
John has come, from its natural importance, to be 
one which, between the extreme German school and 
their opponents, is felt to involve the whole question. 

Supposing, then, the genuineness of the gospel 
of St. John to be satisfactorily established, the 
inquirer finds himself in immediate contact with one 
of the noblest and most truthful personalities that 
distinguish the page of history. He finds himself 
in communion with a mind dwelling on the very 
eminence of truth ; clear, faithful, and enlightened, 



86 BEGINNING LIFE. 

and thoroughly rational, as well as profoundly con- 
templative; with an open eye for the truth of life 
and of fact, as well as an inner eye for the truth of 
the Spirit. " This is the disciple which testifieth of 
these things." You are supposed to have removed 
all doubts upon this point, and to have satisfied 
yourself that St. John of Ephesus is the very man 
with whom, in the gospel of St. John, you have been 
holding intercourse, and to whose voice of witness 
you have been listening. Can you have any doubt 
of the truth of his witness? When he tells you that 
Jesus raised Lazarus from the grave, and sets around 
the miraculous occurrence the most natural and 
beautiful setting of family affection and piety ; when 
he tells you how Jesus himself rose again from the 
dead according to the Scripture, and was seen of 
Mary Magdalene and Peter, and had the "print of 
the nails" in his hands and the spear wound in his 
side handled by the doubting Thomas — can you 
have any question of his deep sincerity ? It is not 
possible that the idea of falsehood can enter into 
any reasonable mind in such a case. The character 
of the venerable apostle, and the very tone of his 
words — instinct at every point with a burning truth- 
fulness — utterly repel such an idea. 

But although there cannot be falsehood, may 
ttiere not be delusion ? May St. John and the other 
apostles not have been mistaken ? This is the only 
alternative of unbelief, and it may certainly be put. 
It is possible for the best men to be mistaken. A 



THE DIBECT WITNESS. 87 

fixed, truthful, and lofty nature is no guarantee 
against religious delusion, as many examples prove. 
But look carefully at the ground on which you stand 
before you allow such a supposition for a moment 
in the present case. You profess to be satisfied that 
the gospel of St. John is really the witness of the 
apostle ; you profess to be satisfied that this witness 
is true. What is the effect of this in relation to the 
question now started? St. John is not content to 
tell us that Jesus raised Lazarus from the grave, 
and that he himself rose again from the dead; he is 
not content to affirm his own belief that Jesus was 
the Christ, and the "Word of God;" but he nar- 
rates at length how he and the other disciples asso- 
ciated with Jesus ; how they constantly saw him in 
private and public for three years ; how they them- 
selves and many others were the witnesses of the 
mighty works which he did. It is no mere assertion 
of preternatural gifts secretly exercised — it is no 
mere statement of wonders done in a corner that he 
sets before us; but it is the detailed picture of a 
Supernatural Life — of a life which, while moving 
among men, showed itself in all its manifestations 
to be more than human — to be effluent, and richly 
so, of Divine power in all it did. Was there room 
for mistake in such a case? St. John was near to 
Christ at every point. It was impossible to have 
more opportunities of knowing what really happened 
than he had. He himself saw, and he says that 
many- Jews who knew the man from his youth saw, 



88 BEGINNING LIFE. 

a man who had been born blind restored to sight by 
Jesus ; he was one of those who gathered rip the 
fragments from the miraculous feast of the five thou- 
sand; he came with his Master to Bethany, and saw 
him as he approached, "groaning in himself/' the 
cave where the sisters had laid the body of their 
brother, heard him cry " with a loud voice, Lazarus, 
come forth !" and saw the dead come forth at the 
mighty voice, " bound hand and foot with grave- 
clothes, and his face bound about with a napkin;" 
he was one of the company of disciples to whom 
Jesus " showed himself now the third time after he 
was risen from the dead." Can we conceive that 
he was possibly mistaken or deluded in all this ? 
What guarantee of fact more can we have than the 
statement of a truthful and clear-sighted man, that 
he was present and saw that to which he testifies ? 

And let it be remembered, that in so stating the 
case, we are purposely, for the sake of illustration, 
understating it. We are isolating, so to speak, the 
testimony of St. John, and looking at it by itself. 
But the general apostolic testimony, differing in 
particulars, is one in substance. It is the same 
Supernatural Life that all the evangelists set forth. 
To the same great facts they all testify ; or at least, 
their differences are such — making every allow- 
ance — as still to leave a conjoined testimony to the 
most important of the Christian miracles. They, 
one and all, bear the like witness to the resurrec- 
tion. St. Peter and St. John alike appeal to it as a 



THE DIKECT WITNESS. 89 

fact within their personal cognizance. St. Paul 
claims about the same relation to it: "Last of all 
he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due 
time." Is it possible to conceive that not merely 
one but all the apostles were mistaken? Were 
three such men as St. Peter, St. John, and St. Paul 
likely to be the subjects of the same illusion? They 
were men in some respects of very different charac- 
ter and temperament ; their personal relations w r ere 
not close, at least those of St. Paul with the others 
were not so ; he had not been subjected to the same 
personal influences as they had in companionship 
with our Lord; he was a man of a different train- 
ing — a preacher of the same truth with them, rather 
than an adherent of the same party — if it be allow- 
able, for the sake of our argument, to use such lan- 
guage. That they were all equally the victims of 
illusion as to the resurrection of our Lord seems an 
incredible supposition. That the miraculous fact 
which they proclaimed as the ground of their faith — 
apart from which they felt that all their preaching 
was vain — that this was after all no fact, but a mere 
dream, which had inspired them, seems an alterna- 
tive utterly irreconcilable with faith in human testi- 
mony, or the credibility of history. 

Look for a moment at the case which perhaps 
always most readily occurs in contrast to the origin 
of Christianity — the case of Mohammed, and the 
rise of Mohammedanism. Mohammed, no doubt, 
succeeded in inspiring his friends with a belief in 



90 BEGINNING LIFE. 

his Divine mission. He professed to have special 
communication with God, and his followers credited 
his profession. But who were his followers in the 
first instance ? His wife, his nephew, his freedman, 
and then his kinsmen or connections in various de- 
grees. The devotion of these disciples, indeed, is 
one of the most marvellous facts of history. But it 
did not claim to rest on any personal cognizance of 
the Divine communication which Mohammed was 
supposed to have received. Neither Kadijah, nor 
Ah, nor Zeid, nor Abu Beker professed to be wit- 
nesses of the alleged visits of the angel Gabriel to 
the prophet. Nay, these visits were always made 
in circumstances of solitude, which excluded the 
possibility of any other evidence save that of Mo- 
hammed himself. The belief which he inspired was 
entirely personal. He made no appeal to miracles. 
He could never have said, "If ye believe not me, 
believe my works. The works that I do bear wit- 
ness of me." There is an entire absence of reliance 
on the testimony of others to his prophetic charac- 
ter and pretensions. All of Divine that he arrogates 
is wrapped up in his own assertion, and his wonder- 
ful confidence in his own powers. 

It is scarcely possible to conceive any greater 
contrast to the evidence on which the Divine origin 
of Christianity exists. The appeal of Christ is 
grounded, not on secret communications wdth God, 
but on works openly wrought in the face of men. 

The witnesses of these works, St. Matthew, St. 



THE DIEECT WITNESS. 91 

John, and St. Mark for St. Peter,* are the men who 
record them. It is possible to conceive that one or 
other may have been mistaken, but that they should 
have been all together mistaken, and in the same 
lnaimei*, baffles conception. Supposing the men to 
have been thoroughly honest — which is beyond 
question — supposing, further, that we have in the 
gospels, as we have argued, the very record which 
they left, the conclusion is inevitable, upon all the 
grounds which determine the validity of historical 
testimony, that the Christian miracles did really 
happen as represented, and that, of course, the 
Divine mission which they certify was a fact. The 
appeal of St. Peter on the day of Pentecost is still 
an appeal cogent for us across the lapse of eighteen 
centuries: "Ye men of Israel, hear these words: 
Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among 
you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God 
did by him." 

* The position of St. Luke, as an independent witness, is some- 
what more complicated. He was not himself an eye-witness nor a 
minister of the Word, nor does he represent any one who was so in 
the sense in which St. Mark represents St. Peter. He professes, 
however, to have compiled and arranged his narrative from the 
testimony of those who "from the beginning were eye-witnesses 
and ministers of the Word," and, moreover, to have had himself a 
"perfect understanding of all things from the first." No doubt, 
therefore rests upon his position, only it is not so obviously related 
by personal contact to the apostolic age as that of the other evan- 
gelists. The uniformity of the tradition which connects St. Mark 
with St. Peter, and gives to his gospel a distinct value, as repre- 
senting the witness of that apostle, is known to all students of 
Christian history. 




VIII. 

* 

The Internal Witness. 

i^TJT Christianity is not merely an his- 
toric fact — it is also a spiritual truth. 
While appealing, therefore, to our ra- 
tional assent, it must also and eminently 
appeal to our moral assent — our "con- 
science in -the sight of God." This internal witness 
of Christianity is " evidence" of its Divine origin, 
and was felt to be so by the apostle Paul. It was a 
sure strength to him in making known the revelation 
of God in Christ. It made him address with equal 
confidence the moralists of Athens and the devout 
men of the synagogue everywhere. The gospel 
wjaich he preached he felt to be "the manifestation 
of the truth." 

There are in man, as history everywhere shows, 
divine aspirations which give him no rest till they 
become fixed on objects fitted to satisfy them. It is 
the profession of Christianity that it meets these 
aspirations more thoroughly than any other reli- 
gion. It is its peculiar boast, that it alone is ade- 
quate, to meet the wants of the awakened and in- 
quiring soul. It is obvious that the question com§s 



THE INTERNAL WITNESS. 93 

to this. The mere satisfaction that a religion gives 
to its votaries could never be held as an evidence of 
its divinity. There can be no question of evidence 
where there is no inquiry. And every one knows 
that the very absence of the spirit which prompts 
inquiry betokens the most perfect satisfaction. There 
are none so satisfied with their religion — be it Ro- 
manism or Protestantism — be it Islamism, or Brah- 
minism, or Buddhism — as those who have never 
once seriously inquired what its origin was, or what 
constitute its evidences, or even its meaning. They 
are what they are from the uncontrollable influences 
of training and habit, which have left them without 
any independent will or capacity of reflective dis- 
cernment. ■ And how large a proportion of the hu- 
man race are in this condition it is needless to say. 
There can be no question as to true or false, so far 
as their mere experience of religion goes. They 
are satisfied, not because they have proved and found 
the truth, but because the question, What is truth ? 
has never occurred to them. They have never reach- 
ed the stage of reflection. 

When it is said, therefore, that Christianity ap- 
proves itself to the conscience, it is of course meant 
that it does so to the educated and inquiring con- 
science. As a subject of reflection, it stands where 
other systems fall. It is the only divine philosophy. 
In Jesus Christ, and in him alone, as one has said, 
"all contradictions are reconciled." The hints of 
truth which shine out in other religions, darkening 



94 BEGINNING LIFE. 

often rather tlian illuminating by their cross-lights, 
are in him blended and harmonized. "He is the 
true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh 
into the world." 

This is plainly a question to be settled by a fair 
appeal to the facts of man's moral being. Do these 
inner facts witness to the revealed facts of the gos- 
pel ? Is there a true correspondence between them 
of subject and object, of want and supply, of neces- 
sity and remedy ? There is, many of the most pro- 
found moral thinkers that the world has known have 
answered. They have examined human nature, 
and laid bare its moral characteristics, and here, in 
Christianity, they have said, is its only satisfaction — 
its only true wisdom and strength. This was the 
great idea on which Pascal designed his work on 
behalf of Christianity, the fragments of which are 
all that survive in his well-known "Pens6es." Cer- 
tainly no one can say that Pascal shrinks from a full 
inquiry, or that he was insensible to the varied and 
complex aspects of human nature. It is his very 
comprehension of these aspects, and the manner in 
which he feels himself tossed from the one to the 
other, unable to rest in any, seeing the weak point 
in all, that drives him on to the recognition of the 
Divine truth of Christianity, as alone meeting them 
and blending them into harmony. Man, he argues, 
is fallen, and yet great. He is miserable, and yet he 
cherishes the instincts of divine happiness. "His 
very miseries prove his greatness. They are the 



THE INTEKNAL WITNESS. 95 

miseries of a lord — of a dethroned sovereign." 
Many human religions or philosophies have failed, 
or proved their incapacity, in the manner in which 
they have recognized the one without the other of 
these moral features of humanity. Some have ap- 
pealed to man's sense of weakness, others to his 
sense of greatness. The one has degraded him 
unduly, the other has exalted him unduly. With 
the one he has been little more than animal, with 
the other he has been as "a god. " If, on the one 
hand," he says, " they have recognized the dignity 
of man, they have ignored his corruption, and avoid- 
ing sloth, they have plunged into pride. If, on the 
other hand, they have recognized the weakness of 
his nature, they have ignored his dignity, and avoid- 
ing vanity, they have plunged into despair." 

The diverse sects of philosophers — Stoics and 
Epicureans, Platonists and Pyrrhonists — appear to 
have sprung from one or other of these half-repre- 
sentations of humanity. Christianity alone unites 
both halves. It alone answers to the essential dou- 
bleness of man's nature; and by its living hold of 
both ideas of dignity and corruption, of excellence 
and sin, shows itself to be a divine power of moral 
education for the race. 

" Christianity can alone cure at once pride and 
despair ; not by expelling the one by the other, ac- 
cording to the wisdom of the world, but.by expelling 
both the one and the other by the simplicity of the 
gospel: for it teaches the good, that while it ele« 



96 * BEGINNING LIFE. 

vates tliem to be partakers of the Divine nature, 
they yet carry with them, in their elevation, the 
sense of that corruption which renders them in life 
the victims of error, misery, sin, and death ; while, 
at the same time, it proclaims to the worst that they 
are capable of the grace of redemption. Thus 
touching with humility those whom it justifies, and 
with consolation those whom it condemns, it tem- 
pers with due measure fear and hope, through the 
twofold capacity in all of grace and sin. It abases 
infinitely more than reason, yet without producing 
despair ; it elevates more than mere natural pride, 
yet without producing inflation. Alone free from 
error, to it alone belongs the task of instructing and 
disciplining men. Who then can refuse to believe 
and adore its heavenly light ?" 

Such is the singular adaptation of Christianity 
to our moral necessities, as it appeared to a great 
thinker, a man of keen and noble intellect as well as 
deep and true affection. The thought of such a 
man is not necessarily convincing to others, but it 
claims our regard more than most thoughts. "When 
a man of profound reflective capacity and varied 
moral experience, in whom the qualities of reason, 
imagination, and Reeling reach well-nigh to the high- 
est range of which they are capable, tells us that he 
has found in Christianity what he has found no- 
where else, what all other systems only partially 
comprehend and express, surely this is in some de- 
gree evidence of the truth of Christianity. Such a 



THE INTERNAL WITNESS. 97 

man was Pascal. His mind was of a rarely inquisi- 
tive and even skeptical turn. He had studied Des- 
cartes, and he had studied Montaigne. He had 
tried Dogmatism and Pyrrhonism, as he styled the 
systems of each respectively. He could find rest in 
neither. "Nature confounds the Pyrrhonist," he 
said, "and reason the Dogmatist." -There is a truth 
both for the reason and faith, but it lies not in 
demonstration. It is within us, yet above us — the 
revelation of the Divine to the human soul. This 
truth is found in Christianity, and in it alone. 

Such a man, also, was Justin, in the second cen- 
tury. He had gone abroad in search of wisdom; 
he had travelled to Egypt and Greece and Rome; 
he had sought instruction in every philosophical 
school; he had tried Stoics and Pythagoreans and 
Platonists ; he had discussed with Jews at Ephesus, 
and gazed with amazement on the seat of the orac- 
ular Sibyl at Cumse. And as the result of all his 
wanderings and experiences, he tells us that he 
found in Christianity "the only sound and useful 
philosophy." What other systems professed to give, 
he found realized in the gospel alone. Such have 
been many men in every age, who have wandered 
forth in search of the truth — earnest and patient 
seekers — and at length only foiind it at the foot of 
the cross. 

Is there any other religion that can' boast of 
such triumphs as Christianity ? Is there any other 
on whose altar have been laid so many offerings, not 

Beginning Life, 5 



93 BEGINNING LIFE. 

merely of enthusiasm and of simple faith, but of 
exercised thoughtfulness and of earnest reason ? Is 
there any one that has ever entered, as it has done, 
into all the depths of the soul ? Is there any other 
religion whatever can claim man as the child of rea- 
son; and just because he has reason, call upon him in 
the light of day to examine and prove that it offers 
him all he needs? This is its peculiar distinction. 
" The gospel," says Vinet, who had learned much 
from Pascal, "unites itself intimately with all that 
is most profound and ineradicable in our nature. 
It fills in it a void — it clears from it datrkness — it 
binds into harmony the broken elements, and creates 
unity. It makes itself not only believed, but felt; 
and when the soul has thoroughly appropriated it, it 
blends indistinguishably with all the primitive be- 
liefs, and the natural light — or reason — w 7 hich every 
man brings into the world." 

Again, the same author urges the correspond- 
ence between the soul and the gospel in a beautiful 
passage : " You remember the custom of ancient hos- 
pitality : before parting with a stranger, the father 
of the family, breaking a piece of clay on which 
certain characters were impressed, gave one half to 
the stranger, and kept the other himself. Years 
after, these tw T o fragments brought together and 
rejoined, acknowledged each other — so to speak — 
formed a bond of recognition between those pre- 
senting them ; and in attesting old relations; became 
at the same time the basis of new. So in the book 



THE INTEKNAL WITNESS. "99 

of our soul does the Divine revelation unite itself to 
the old traces there. The soul does not discover, 
but recognizes the truth. It infers that a reunion 
(rencontre) — impossible to chance, impossible to cal- 
culation — can only be the wort and secret of God ; 
and it is then really that we believe, when the gos- 
pel has for us passed from the rank of an external 
to the rank of an internal truth, and, if I might say 
so, of an instinct — when, in short, it has become 
part and parcel of our consciousness." 

This internal evidence, of course, is in its very 
nature dependent upon an honest, docile, and — if 
we may say so without incurring the charge of argu- 
ing in a circle — believing spirit. A man who has 
lost the capacity of faith through self-will, or pride 
of intellect, or any other cause — of course there can 
be no such witness of the Spirit to him. He has 
eyes, but he sees not; and ears, but he hears not. 
If a man is not in search of truth, he cannot find it. 
" There is light enough for those who are willing, but 
darkness enough for those who are of an opposite 
disposition," says Pascal. It is no answer, there- 
fore, to our argument to say that there are many 
who have no such experience of Christianity. It 
may be so; but have such any spiritual experience? 
Have they had their hearts stirred in them to know 
good" and evil ? Have they longed after God, and 
sought to know him, and to find their happiness in 
knowing him ? If they have not, then they are* out 
of court in the present case. A spiritual faith can 



100 BEGINNING LIFE. 

only be known to those whose spiritual susceptibili- 
ties are awake and in quest of the truth. If they 
have, then so far their case must stand in bar to our 
conclusion. We would not say that there are not 
such cases. We would not say that there may not 
be men of deep sincerity, and even of spiritual ear- 
nestness, who cannot find rest in Christianity in 
such a time as ours. We have no right to say such 
a thing. But we have right to say that such cases 
are rare, and are at the best of partial importance. 
They must be taken into account in forming our 
judgment; but they are not entitled to set aside the 
positive evidence with which they seem to conflict. 
It must be always difficult to estimate such cases, 
and understand their true importance. 

The conclusion remains, that the awakened spir- 
itual intelligence of man, in its highest and most 
developed forms, continues to find, as it has found 
in past ages, its truest satisfaction in the gospel. It 
finds here a revelation of God and a revelation of 
itself such as it finds nowhere else — a witness of 
perfection above coming down to meet imperfection 
on earth, and to raise it to its own blessed union 
and strength. It finds here a power to quicken and 
enlighten, to regenerate and sanctify — a power which 
brings the alienated soul back to God, and heals its 
anxieties, and kindles its torpor, and, from the dark- 
ness of sin, raises it to the light of heaven. It is 
impossible that a religion which thus leads to God 
should not come from him — that our spiritual being 



THE INTERNAL WITNESS. 101 

should be quickened into life and righteousness by 
a falsehood. " Suppose, after all, that ygu are told 
that this religion is false ; but meanwhile it has re- 
stored in you the image of God, reestablished your 
original connection with that great Being, and put 
you in a condition to enjoy the bliss of heaven; by 
means of it you have become such that it is impos- 
sible God should not recognize you as his child, and 
own you at the last, and make you partaker of his 
glory. You are made fit for paradise, nay, paradise 
has begun in you here — for you live. This religion 
has done for you what all religions propose, but what 
no other has realized. Nevertheless, by this suppo- 
sition, it is false — what more could it do if it were 
true? Nay, do you not rather see that this is a 
splendid proof of its truth ? Do you not see that a 
religion which thus leads to God must come from 
God?" It has the witness in itself — "the Spirit of 
truth which proceedeth from the Father, and which 
testifieth of the Son." 





AT TO pELIEVE. 

J T is necessary not only to be able to 
render a reason for the faith that is in 
us, but, moreover, clearly to understand the 
objects presented to our faith in Christian- 
ity. The two states of mind are intimately 
connected. No one is in a position to appreciate 
the "evidences" of Christianity who does not un- 
derstand what Christianity clearly is — and there are 
some who argue on the subject in our day do not 
really understand this ; and no one can be said to 
understand Christianity as a subject of thought, who 
does not know something of its evidences. 

The very extent to which Christianity has been 
made a subject of thought and argument, has a 
tendency to obscure its meaning to the young in- 
quirer. It has been so elaborately systematized, and 
its various articles so minutely controverted, that it 
is difficult, amid the mass of speculation and dis- 
cussion with which it has been invested, to discern 
its simple meaning. And yet, undoubtedly, its true 
meaning is very simple, and capable of being appre- 
hended, quite irrespective of the controversies which 
have traversed and complicated it. . We have only 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. 103 

to transport ourselves in imagination to the apos- 
tolic age, before any of these controversies had 
arisen — before the ages of dogma had yet come — 
in order to feel how possible it must be to under- 
stand Christianity fully, without plunging into the 
perilous war of words that has long raged around 
it. Do not all feel who have most studied it, that 
this is especially what they have to do — to read its 
simple meaning in the crossed page of its history — 
to rise above its watchwords, as they reach us across 
the ages, bearing many confusing sounds, to the liv- 
ing heart of the cause which they symbolized and 
were meant to defend — instead of losing the reality 
in the words, and becoming enslaved to names which 
may have long lost their original strength and truth- 
fulness ? 

Beyond all question the objects presented to our 
faith in the gospel — what we are to believe — are not 
primarily any set of propositions or number of arti- 
cles. Such propositions or articles may be of the 
highest utility; they may serve admirably to ex- 
press, in an expository form or outline, our faith ; 
but, primarily, they are not matters of faith. The 
primary object of Christian faith, as of all faith, is a 
Person. Trust in me can only be created by charac- 
ter or claims in another. I may assent to a proposi- 
tion, but I do not properly believe it till the element 
of personality with which it is connected, or which 
it represents, comes into play. Faith, like love, is 
' the appropriate exchange of one soul and spirit with 



104 BEGINNING LIFE. 

another, or with Him who is the Father of spirits, 
in whose hand is the soul of every living thing ; and 
the word is emptied of its best meaning when, es- 
pecially in religion, it is used in any lower sense. 

The great and comprehending object of Christian 
faith is Christ. As St. Paul said to the Philippian 
jailer, when, pressed with his sudden burden of 
offence and danger, he cried out, " What must I do 
to be saved ?" " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved." In Jesus Christ is summed 
up all that we have to believe — the revelation of the 
Father — the redeeming sacrifice of the Son — the 
sanctifying of the Spirit, which proceedeth from the 
Father, and testifietli of the Son. In him, and in 
him alone, we truly see our sin and misery — our 
help and salvation — our death and our life — our 
selfish unrighteousness, and the " righteousness 
which is of God by faith of him." 

I. THE EEYELATION OF THE FATHEK. 

In believing in Jesus Christ we believe on the 
Father, revealed in and by him. He came " to bear 
witness of the Father," to reveal the eternal govern- 
ment of the universe in a holy and loving Will — 
" who made the world and all things therein" — w T ho 
is "God over all, blessed for ever." This was what 
men had failed to find out in all their religious 
searches, in all their philosophic inquiries. The 
Supreme was conceived of as a great power of fate, 
or as an arbitrary and capricious personality or 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. 105 

series of personalities. Men had generalized the 
aspects of nature, and beheld Deity now in the soft 
sunshine and gentle springtime, and now in the de- 
vastating forms of heat and cold, of thunder and 
storm. A creative, formative principle seemed ev- 
erywhere striving with a destructive principle — a 
power of light with a power of darkness — a Baal- 
Adonis with a Baal-Moloch — an Osiris with a Ty- 
phon — an Ormuzd with an Ahriman — Olympus with 
Hades. This duahsm appears in all nature-reli- 
gions; the reflection* of the brightness and gloom of 
nature — the joy and sorrow* of life. It crops out 
alike in the torpid Pantheism of the East, and in 
the active and changing Polytheism of the West. 
Philosophy, even when it seemed to penetrate to a 
unity of substance and being beneath the multipli- 
city of form and phenomena, as in Platonism, was 
never entirely liberated from the same bond of dual- 
ism. As Destiny was the dark background of all 
the joyous activity of Olympus, so Necessity was the 
encompassing barrier of even the Platonic Deity. 
Creation, in a free Theistic sense, was unknown. It 
was " God persuading Necessity to become stable, 
harmonious, and fashioned according to beauty," 
which was the highest conception of Greek thought 
in this direction. 

If there were no other proof of our Lord's divine 
mission, this, we think, were one — that the son of a 
Galilean carpenter taught a higher doctrine of God 
than all previous religion and philosophy had done; 

5* * 



106 BEGINNING LIFE. 

that he unveiled the Supreme as an unconditionally 
free and loving and holy Intelligence; as a Being 
infinitely exalted, and apart from all evil — " higher 
than the very heavens " — " dwelling in the light 
which no man can approach unto; whom no man 
hath seen nor can see" — and yet a Being "not far 
from any one of us," "who numbereth the very hairs 
of our head," and " suffereth not a sparrow to fall 
to the ground without his permission." If any one 
doubts what an advance this was on all previous 
teaching, he has only to study the Gnostic systems 
of the first Christian ages, and see what difficulty 
the thought of the time had in seizing the Christian 
idea of God even after it was promulgated. These 
systems, one and all of them, are nothing else than 
attempts of speculation to reduce the Theistic idea 
to the old dualistic bonds. A God infinitely above 
man — absolute in power, goodness, and truth, and 
yet near to man — in Christ "very man" — supreme, 
and yet "our Father" — light, and yet love — govern- 
ing the world with personal solicitude for his crea- 
tures, yet unmoved by their passions, untouched by 
the darkness in their hearts — this was beyond the 
speculative intellect then, as it has been beyond the 
same intellect always when divorced from spiritual 
insight and the light of faith, which can alone pierce 
the darkness of time. 

This revelation of God as the absolute One, and 
yet a living Personality near to all, was only fully 
made known in Christ. It appears, indeed, in the 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. 107 

Old Testament writings ; the very language we have 
used in characterizing it shows this ; yet it was only 
in Christ it became clear and perfect. The Jewish 
mind clung, according to its narrow instincts, with 
a peculiar tenacity to the narrower characteristics 
of the Divine character revealed to it, the tutelary 
attributes by which he was signalized as the God of 
the Jews — their national Deity — rather than the 
broader attributes which revealed him as the God 
of humanity, the "Father of the spirits of all flesh." 
The higher prophetic mind* among the Hebrews 
saw onward to the full radiance of this revelation 
and u were glad;" but it never became a living faith 
to the common Jewish mind. It never planted itself 
as a living faith in man till it was seen incarnated in 
Christ ; and we beheld " His glory, as the glory of 
the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and 
truth." 

This revelation of the Father is a primary object 
of Christian faith. Or rather, according to what we 
have said, the Father revealed in Christ is such an 
object. To believe in God as absolutely true and 
good, as holy and loving, as "of purer eyes than to 
behold iniquity," and yet— should we not rather 
say, and therefore — of infinite compassion toward 
the sinner — this is the spring of all genuine reli- 
gion, as the want of faith in God is the spring of all 
false religion. It is wonderful how many miss this 
spring, " this living * fountain, and hew out unto 
themselves broken cisterns, that can hold no water." 



108 BEGINNING LIFE. 

It would seem the hardest thing of all for many to 
trust in God — to realize for themselves that Gocl 
loves them and seeks their good ; that for this end 
Christ came into the world : to show the love and the 
holiness of the Father, not as two things in con- 
flict, but as one blessed "Will that would save us 
from our sins. As St. John has taught us in that 
marvellous text, the meaning of which we can never 
exhaust — "God so loved the world, that he gave his 
only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
should not perish, butiiave everlasting life." 

II. THE KEDEEMING SACRIFICE OF 
THE SON. 

This was the redeeming sacrifice of the Son, that 
the Father gave him for us. "In this was mani- 
fested the love of God toward us, because that God 
sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we 
might live through him. Herein is love, not that we 
loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to 
be the propitiation for our sins." Such is the sim- 
ple teaching of Scripture, in which we may find 
strength and peace, although we are no theologians, 
,and may be unable to theorize regarding the means 
and the extent of the atonement. 

The great facts brought before us in such state- 
ments, and many others, of Scripture, are the lov- 
ing will of the Father, and the voluntary sacrifice of 
the Son in our behalf; the latter as the free outgo- 
ing or expression of the former. Every mode of 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. 109 

thought or maimer of speech which tends to dis- 
sever these two facts, and to introduce anj^element 
of conflict into the Divine Mind regarding human 
redemption, is carefully to be guarded against. It 
is perfectly true, no doubt, and very important truth, 
that the holiness and justice of God must hate and 
repel our sins. God is revealed as a Sovereign and 
Lawgiver, as w r ell as a Father ; and the sinner, as 
transgressor of Divine law, must lie under its pen- 
alty. Those who push out of sight the elements of 
law and justice, and leave only those of love and 
pity, detract from the full revelation of the charac- 
ter of God, as they wilfully ignore many facts of 
life. Everywhere around us and in us there are 
traces of retributive operation — of laws violated, 
and punishment swiftly following the violation. 
There are instincts of genuine alarm and danger in 
us, which tremble before the Divine righteousness. 
In one sense, therefore, it is right to say that the 
justice of God claims our punishment, while the love 
of God claims our salvation; but these two outgo- 
ings of the Divine will toward us are only apparent- 
ly and not really in conflict. They do not mean 
different things; they mean the very same thing. 
The Divine justice claims the punishment of our 
sins to the end that we may be saved from them; 
the Divine love claims our salvation for no other 
end. Salvation is always and everywhere, in its 
true meaning, rescue from sin. The Lord gave him- 
self for us. that he "might redeem us from all our 



110 BEGINNING LIFE. 

iniquities, and purify unto himself a peculiar people 
zealous of good works." 

The redeeming sacrifice of Christ, therefore, is 
at once the expression of the Father's love, and an 
oblation to satisfy Divine justice. It is both, for 
the very same reason that Christ was the manifes- 
tation of the Father upon earth, to do the Father's 
will. " Lo, I come ; in the volume of the book it is 
written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God," 
is the memorial expression of the atonement. The 
will of the Father in Christ w T as love to the sinner, 
and at the same time hatred of the sinner's sin, or 
holiness. The realization of the Divine love in the 
holy life, healing miracles, and bitter death of Christ, 
was also the satisfaction of the Divine holiness — the 
magnifying of the law, and making it honorable. 
The very doing of the Father's loving will was the 
propitiation of his offended justice. He looked on 
Christ, and saw in him the perfect accomplishment 
of his thought toward man. The voice from heaven 
was heard to say, " This is my beloved Son, in whom 
I am well pleased." 

This sacrifice of Christ in his life and in his death 
is the great object of Christian faith. "He gave 
himself for us — the Just for the unjust — that he 
might bring us unto God." Look clearly and prac- 
tically at this thought, and see if you do not realize 
its meaning as living and true for you. Do you not 
feel that there is something in you that answers to 
it? nay, that there is something in you that de- 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. Ill 

mands it ? If your spiritual life has been awakened, 
and you have come to own yourself a creature "of 
God, do you not feel, at the same time, how diffi- 
cult it is for you to live near to God and to do his 
will ? Do you not feel that his ivill to you must be a 
will of condemnation and of punishment, if you are 
to stand before him and court his judgment on 
yourself? The deepest spiritual natures that the 
world has ever known have felt- this — St. Paul, Au- 
gustine, Luther, Pascal. They all felt that they 
had no hope in themselves before God. " Their 
own heart condemned them." " O wretched man 
that I am!" exclaimed St. Paul;. " who shall deliver 
me from the body of this death?" "O my sins, 
my sins !" cried Luther. " It is in vain that I prom- 
ise to God. Sin is always too strong for me." 

Is this or is it not a real moral experience ? one 
under which every soul, really quickened to life — 
really aroused to earnest spiritual thoughtfulness — 
passes ? It is surely a cruel, as well as a useless 
mockery, to pass by such experiences, and give 
them no response, while yet they cry from every full 
heart, to which the sense of God has come in power 
and awe. Are they to be thought only strange 
voices crying in the wilderness, while the progress 
of religious truth sweeps past them? No. These 
suspiria de profundis are the most genuine utteran- 
ces of religious truth. They are the living voice of 
God in the soul, and no mere cry of exaggerated 
despair. 



112 BEGINNING LIFE. 

And if this be so, then — if it be a true feeling in 
us that we cannot in ourselves stand before God, 
that we cannot in ourselves render him obedience — - 
who shall say that our rest in Christ, and our hope 
in him, contradict any instincts of our spirit ? Is it 
not help we need — some one to unveil to us the face 
of God, and bring him near to us, and us to him ? 
Is not mediation the necessary correlate of aliena- 
tion ? If the sinner cannot reach God — if his sins 
hold him back — is it not some one to open up the 
way to him, "new and living," and to bear his sins, 
that he wants? This question of mediation and its 
necessity, is one which it is in vain for any mere eso- 
teric and refining theology to hope to settle by round 
assertions as to mediation being in contradiction to 
our moral instincts. Where is the evidence of this ? 
" Our moral instincts," we presume, are the higher 
instincts of our common humanity, which connect 
us with duty and with God. They cannot be the 
refinements of a few philosophic natures, who have 
gradually pared down their spiritual consciousness, 
lill it has lost all its rougher vitality. The common 
heart seems nowhere to find any contradiction in 
the idea of mediation. It is above all the religious 
idea to which it everywhere clings. If there be one 
thing more than another for which the soul cries in 
its moments of religious distress and moral tempta- 
tion, it is help — help not in ourselves, but in another 
" able to save even to the uttermost." It is only 
when this higher power is owned by us, lifting us 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. 113 

out of our sins, that we really rise above them, and 
feel that their bondage falls away from us, and that 
not merely the will, but the capacity to do good is 
present with us. 

It is true that this idea o'f mediation, so dear to 
.the human heart, is extremely liable to corruption. 
There is a constant tendency in popular religion, so 
to speak, to secularize it — to degrade it from the 
sphere of the Divine to the sphere of the human, 
and even of the material. Man 'feels so deeply^he 
need of help, that he is apt to cling to any object 
to which his religious affections may point when 
these are greatly agitated. The elaborate media- 
tory system of the Roman-catholic church has its 
origin -in this deep-seated tendency, and no less 
indeed some forms of Protestant faith. Whatever 
dissevers, even in thought, Christ from God, and 
leaves the mind to rest on the sacrifice of Christ, as 
any thing apart from the will of God, and a power 
moving it from without, rather than its oion expres- 
sion and power of love for our good, is so far of the 
very same character as the grosser Roman-catholic 
qrror that Protestantism rejects. Nothing must be 
allowed to hide the heart immediately from God 
himself. It is God that saves us in .Christ, and not 
Christ that saves us out of God. The Mediator 
whom the religious instinct demands, and whom 
Christianity reveals, is — Immanuel, God with us. 
There is nothing can come near to us with any right 
effect as a thought of help in our hours of need 



1U BEGINNING LIFE. 

save God himself — God in Christ, revealed in the 
gospel as loving us and seeking our good. We 
have only to preserve clearly the unity of the will of 
God and of Christ in redemption, the fact that 
Christ is God "manifest in the flesh," in order to 
rid the idea of mediation of all possible conflict 
with our spiritual consciousness on the one hand, 
and of all materializing corruption on the other 
hand. Everything that tends to disturb our clear 
perception of this unity — every thing that breaks 
down the full idea of the Incarnation, and suggests 
the thought of any extraneous power coming be- 
tween us and God — serves at once to degrade and 
contradict our highest sense of religion. The soul 
can only find rest in God; it can only be really 
helped by him. It has been so helped. God has 
revealed himself in Christ as our Saviour. This is 
the great truth of the gospel, and, more than any 
thing else, the great truth which man ever needs. 

Fix your hearts on this truth — that God is your 
Saviour. It needs no special theological knowledge 
to comprehend it; and it remains substantially un- 
affected by many perplexities of dogmatic discus- 
sion. You need salvation. If you are honest and 
earnest, you will feel that there is a reality of evil 
in your lives from which you need to be delivered, 
and a reality of good in your imagination to which 
you cannot attain. God sent his Son into the world 
not merely to show you by contrast the hatefulness 
of this evil and the beauty of this good. This in- 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. 115 

deed would have been but a small matter — to quicken 
and educate our moral sense, while we w r ere left with 
an unrelieved sense of guilt and a weakened and 
perverted will: not so; but God sent his Son into 
the world to take away our sins. The burden of 
moral offence which our conscience owns he took 
upon himself — he was "bruised for our iniquity." 
He so made himself one with us in every feeling of 
humanity, as to realize what our sins were, and to 
atone for them before the Father ; and having "thus 
made peace" and not merely announced truth, he is 
able to save all that come unto him.. The conscience 
finds peace in the assurance of atonement; the will 
finds strength in the knowledge of a living Help. In 
him and through him we are brought near to God 
in a full assurance of faith that God loves us, not- 
withstanding the offence of gll our sins, and has 
reconciled us unto himself by his cross. In him we 
have redemption, even the forgiveness of our sins, 
according to the riches of his grace. And nothing 
short of this — nothing short of a new relation — of a 
true reconciliation established between God and the 
sinner — seems to give a firm foundation to the reli- 
gious life, and & genuine and growing vigor to it. 

"Will any faith that is short of this faith," asks 
one who has written thoughtfully of this and other 
kindred Christian topics,* "satisfy the deepest needs 
and cravings of your souls? You may struggle 
against it with your understanding, though I think 
® Dean Trench. 



116 BEGINNING LIFE. 

very needlessly ; for it seems to me to approve itself 
to the reason and the conscience quite as much as 
to demand acceptance of our faith; but you will 
crave it with your inmost spirit. There are times 
when perhaps nothing short of this will save you 
from a hopeless despair. Let me imagine, for ex- 
ample, one who, with many capacities for a nobler 
and purer life, and many calls thereunto, has yet 
suffered himself to be entangled in youthful lusts — 
has stained himself with these ; and then, after a 
while, awakens, or rather is awakened by the good 
Spirit of God, to ask himself, What have I done ? 
How fares it with him at the retrospect then, when 
he, not wholly laid waste in spirit, is made to pos- 
sess — oh, fearful possession — the sins of his youth? 
Like a stricken deer, though none but himself may 
be conscions of his wound, he wanders away from 
his fellows ; or if with them, he is alone among them ; 
for he is brooding still and ever on the awful mys- 
tery of evil which he now too surely knows. And 
now, too, all purity, the fearful innocence of chil- 
dren, the holy love of sister and of mother, and the 
love which he had once dreamed of as better even 
than these, with all that is supremely fair in nature ■ 
or in art, comes to him with a shock of pain, is 
fraught with an infinite sadness ; for it wakens up 
in him, by contrast, a livelier sense of what he is," 
and what, as it seems, he must for ever be; it re- 
minds him of a paradise for ever lost, the angel of 
God's anger guarding with a fiery sword its entrance 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. 117 

against him. He tries by a thousand devices to 
still, or at least to deaden the undoing pain of his 
spirit. What is this word sin that it should torment 
him so ? He will tear away the consciousness of it, 
this poisonous shirt of Nessus eating into his soul, 
which in a heedless moment he has put on. But 
no ; he can tear away his own flesh, but he cannot 
tear away that. Go where he may, he still carries 
with him the barbed shaft which has pierced him — 
hceret lateri letalis ariindo. The arrow which drinks 
up his spirit, there is no sovereign dittany which 
will cause it to drop from his side — none, that is, 
which grows on earth ; but there is which grows in 
heaven, and in the church of Christ, the heavenly 
enclosure here. And you, too, may find your peace, 
you will find it when you learn to look by faith on 
him, 'the Lamb of God that taketh away the 'sin of 
the world.' Tou will carry, it may be, the scars of 
those wounds which you have inflicted upon your- 
self to your grave ; but the wounds themselves, he 
can heal them, and heal them altogether. He can 
give you back the years which the cankerworm has 
eaten, the peace which your sin has chased away, 
and, as it seemed to you, for ever. He can do so, 
and will. ' Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be 
clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.' 
This will then be your prayer, and this your prayer 
will be fulfilled. The blood of sprinkling will purge 
you, and you will feel yourself clean. Your sin will 
no longer be yourself ; you will be able to look at it 



118 BEGINNING LIFE. 

as separated from you, as laid upon another — upon 
One so strong that he did but for a moment stagger 
under the weight of a world's sin, and then so bore, 
that bearing, he has borne it away for ever." 

III. THE GKACE OF THE HOLY SPIEIT. 

The sanctifying of the Holy Spirit of God stands 
as a truth in immediate connection with the redeem- 
ing sacrifice of the Son of God. Pentecost followed 
Calvary. The outpouring of the Spirit came through 
the shedding of the blood upon the cross. And the 
two truths are united not only objectively, but in our 
inward consciousness. As our spiritual alienation 
points to the one, our moral helplessness points to 
the other. It is the same need of help, only in 
different aspects, that demands atonement, and de- 
mands the grace of sanctifying. And here, too, it 
is important to seize clearly and keep in view the 
unity of the Divine will. This will is in all respects 
good to us — in all respects powerful to bless us ; and 
as the sacrifice of Christ is the expression of its love 
and favor for us in one direction, so is the agency of 
the Holy Spirit the expression of its love and favor 
for us in a farther and completing direction. Re- 
deemed by the sacrifice of the Son, brought back 
from our alienation and wretched guiltiness into love 
and favor, we are not merely placed, as it were, on 
a new footing before God, but we are quickened 
with a new life ; we are made partakers of his Spirit. 
We not only enter into new relations with him, but 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. 119 

we become new creatures. The change that is 
wrought in us is always a moral, and in no sense 
merely a formal change. It is a change from death 
to life, from selfishness to self-sacrifice, from neglect 
or worldliness, or at least indifference, to an earnest 
and solemn communion with God. The tendencies 
of our being point upward, and no longer downward. 
" We are created anew unto all good works." 

The Divine Spirit is the constant and only agent 
of this great change in us, and it is absolutely ne- 
cessary that we apprehend and believe in his influ- 
ence. "In us, that is, in our flesh, there dwelleth 
no good thing." No life, no righteousness can sub- 
sist apart from God. And if at any time we fall 
away from our consciousness of Divine influence, 
and still more if we lose our faith in it, we make 
shipwreck of a good conscience, and become tempt- 
ed of our lusts. We must look not away from 
ourselves, but beyond ourselves, higher than our- 
selves — to Him "who performeth all things for us," 
and who alone can work in us the works of faith 
and of holiness with power. When we think of our 
pressing moral necessities, the weakness and fears 
and darkness that so often beset us, and the help- 
less wavering of our will when the stain of tempta- 
tion falls upon us, it might seem that of all things 
we would be free to look beyond ourselves to the 
Holy Spirit of God, and to make ourselves strong 
in him and "in the power of his might;" but self- 
will and self-reliance often drive out faith and hu- 



120 ! BEGINNING LIFE. 

mility from our hearts. It is as these live, however, 
and in their life cling to Gocl and to the Spirit of 
God, which he giveth to every one that asketli him, 
that we alone grow strong to do the w T ill of God, 
•and to walk in a way well-pleasing unto him. 

The three aspects of Christian truth which we 
have now presented form the main substance of 
Christian faith, practically considered. There are 
many important points of faith besides, but these 
are, more than any thing else, the essential sub- 
stance upon which it lives. They are all immedi- 
ately connected with Christ himself. In believing 
on Christ rightly, we believe in them all. It is only 
in the life, miracles, and doctrines of Christ that the 
character of God is unveiled; it is only through the 
death of Christ and his ascension into heaven, that 
the full reality of the Spirit's influence is made 
known. The love of God, the sacrifice of Christ, 
the love and pow r er of the Spirit, w^ere no doubt all 
present to the mind of St. Paul when he said to the 
Philippian jailer, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ 
and thou shalt be saved." 

The case of the Philippian jailer was not one for 
minute theological instruction. He did not want to 
have a system of thought set before him. He want- 
ed a living truth on which he could rest — a living- 
Saviour to whom he could appeal. And the case of 
every one of us is practically of the same character. 
We may not be plunged into any sudden crisis of 
spiritual torture such as he was; we may not be 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. 121 

overcome by a fear which makes us cry out, wheth- 
er we will or not; but we are equally creatures of 
the same spiritual necessities with him, and our 
only strength is where his lay. We can only be 
saved from our sins, and the terror which they sel- 
dom fail to bring with them, as he was — we must 
"believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." 

Is it a hard thing to trust in God, and in Christ, 
and in the Spirit of God and of Christ ? Yes, it is 
a hard thing, if we are either sunk in self-gratifica- 
tion or self-delusion, in the pride of pleasure or the 
pride of intellect. If we have given up our hearts 
to vanities, and remember not that "for all these 
things God will bring us into judgment " — or if we 
have given up our souls to abstraction, and remem- 
ber not that life is more solemn than our theories of 
it, and death more swift than our solutions of them — 
then it is hard to cherish a trust of which we do not 
feel the need, for which we have left no room. But 
if we are practically earnest about life and death, 
if our hearts are moved to " seek first the kingdom 
of God and his righteousness," to look beyond the 
present and to prepare for the future, then the faith 
of Christ will be found to meet our necessities and 
aspirations more than any thing else. The thought 
of God's unfailing love, and of Christ's atoning 
death, and of the Holy Spirit's constant presence 
and power, will fit into the course of our life, and 
the reality of Divine help into which they combine 
will more nearly touch us than all reality besides. 

Beginning Life. 6 





'HE very conception of moral life implies 
life under a rule, and directed toward an 

end. It implies, in short, an ideal element. 

It is higher in thought and aim than it ever 

is in practice and fact. 
The presence of this ideal element distinguishes 
the human from the mere animal life. The latter is 
a constant outgoing, an incessant activity, and noth- 
ing more. It has no interior drama, no reflective 
pauses. The senses are its only media and minis- 
ters; impressions are being constantly conveyed 
through them, and movement is constantly given off 
as the result ; and this is all. It would be shocking 
to think that there was any thing more, considering 
how we use animal life — how recklessly we squan- 
der it for our pleasure or our profit. 

It is the distinction of moral life that it is capa- 
ble of "looking before and after," that it can reflec- 
tively realize its own character and purposes ; and 
it is supposed to rise the higher, and become the 
nobler, the more completely it is governed by law, 
and the more actively it fulfils it. Many, it must 
be confessed, but feebly own this. Instinct and not 



WHAT TO AIM AT. 123 

principle; habit and not reflection, guide and control 
their existence, which, in its monotonous or exciting- 
round of sensations, can scarcely claim to be higher 
than that of the lower animals. Nay, it may fall 
lower, from the mere circumstance that it is in its 
essence superior, and that it cannot, therefore, be 
absorbed in a mere sensational activity, without 
losing itself and becoming corrupted. We never 
feel this in regard to the lower animals. The con- 
stant play and free indulgence of sensations in which 
their life consists, suggest only a conformity with 
their nature ; and all conformity with nature is beau- 
tiful. It is the feeling that a mere sensational ex- 
istence is not in harmony with the true nature of 
man, that he has a higher being which is violated 
when it does not receive exercise and scope, that 
makes us look upon such an existence as unworthy 
of man and even degrading to him. In point of 
fact, it always is degrading to him. For just be- 
cause he is essentially a higher being, he cannot 
preserve his purity, his healthfulness, as the lower 
animals do, in a mere life of sensation. 

Every ethical theory, therefore, has sought to 
raise man above sense, and inspire him with the 
idea of law, however vaguely and imperfectly, in 
many cases. Even Epicureanism, which, in popu- 
lar language, has become identified with mere sen- 
sual gratification, and a possible philosophy thereof, 
did not profess to regard man as a mere animal, 
without intellectual or moral aspirations. It set 



124 BEGINNING LIFE. 

before him, indeed, pleasure as the highest good, 
but pleasure according to his nature, not in disre- 
gard or contempt of it. Otherwise the pleasure 
could not possibly be his highest good, and a phi- 
losophy which in its very conception contradicted 
itself vjould stand in no need of refutation. We may 
find much to disapprove of in Epicureanism, but we 
shall not find such silliness and contradictoriness in 
any great system of thought which has swayed the 
minds of men. 

Stoicism announced the idea of law as its great 
principle. It set before its disciples a lofty but 
stern and barren ideal. The law of wiiich it con- 
ceived was an "immanent necessity of reason," an 
unchanging impersonal order governing the uni- 
verse. To this all must submit, and find peace in 
submission. " The wise man," says Marcus Aure- 
lius, "calmly looks on the game, and surrenders 
with cheerfulness his individual existence to the 
claims of the whole, to which every individual as a 
part ought to be subservient." This was, beyond 
doubt, a brave and heroic doctrine for heroic crea- 
tures. In many noble minds in the old Eoman 
world it was a spring of genuine greatness; but a 
moral ideal which could only appeal to the strength 
of man's will, and which in its very conception 
excluded every element of personal sympathy, was 
totally unfitted for the race as a whole. It started 
from a defective moral basis, and could only reach, 
even in the best, a defective moral standard, 



WHAT TO AIM AT. 125 

It is the boast of Christianity that it sets before 
man the only perfect ideal of life ; an ideal which at 
once bases itself on a true interpretation of his na- 
ture, and which w r orks itself out by a living Divine 
agency, alone fitted effectually to move and educate 
* him. It enunciates even more faithfully than Stoi- 
cism the idea of law; but then it apprehends and 
represents this law, not as a dead impersonal neces- 
sity, but as a living and loving Will in converse with 
our feeble wills, healing and helping their infirmi- 
ties. It merges lata, in short, in the holy and bless- 
ed will of Christ; and the ideal which it paints is 
neither a stern moralism, which is always saying to 
itself, " Courage, courage ! whatever is, is right ;" 
nor a poetic self-culture, which aims at the fitting 
and joyous development of every natural faculty; 
but a life in God, a life in communion with the 
Highest; humble and pure and self-denying, yet 
Strong, cheerful, and heroic. It starts, altogether 
unlike Stoicism, from the recognition of human 
weakness, but instead of holding out any soft palli- 
ations for this weakness, it only reveals it — to cure 
it; and from the Divine strengthening of the "inner 
man," it builds up the outer life into compact seem- 
liness and virtue. 

"All is, if I have grace to use it so, 
As ever in rny great Taskmaster's eye." 

This is no inadequate expression of the Christian 
ideal. "For our conversation is in heaven," says 
St. Paul, "from whence also we look for the Saviour, 



126 BEGINNING LIFE. 

the Lord Jesus." To have our lives fixed in God and 
in Christ — to preserve a consciousness of an unseen 
and higher life ever encompassing ours, and being 
near to us as a presence at once of holiness and of 
help ; this is the aim of the Christian. A true and 
noble life on earth he believes can alone spring from 
communion with heaven. It can alone be main- 
tained and grow up into the " measure of the stat- 
ure " of a perfect life from an increase of this com- 
munion. All that is good on earth is merely a reflec- 
tion of the good that is above. " If there be any vir- 
tue, and if there be any praise," God is the source 
of them, and Christ the pattern of them. " What- 
soever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, 
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are 
pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things 
are of good report;" these are prescribed in Christ 
as our example. And the Spirit takes of the things 
of Christ and imparts them to us. " Beholding as 
in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into 
the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit 
of the Lord." 

This Divine education, after the holy example of 
our Lord, is the Christian life. The ideal is to be 
like unto Him who lived in constant communion 
with the Father — "who did no sin" — who contin- 
ually "went about doing good." How lofty, and yet 
how attractive an ideal ! higher than any mere dream 
of inflexible law, yet condescending to our weakness, 
in the loving sympathy and help which it extends 



WHAT TO AIM AT. 127 

to us. This element of character makes every dif- 
ference. It is not the mere voice of command that 
we hear — not the mere claim of obedience that is 
exacted from us; but the voice is that of a friend 
and "elder Brother" — of One who is not untouched 
with the feeling of our infirmities, but who "was in 
all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." 
The claim is the claim of a Love which is ready to 
help us, which is constantly helping us, and drawing 
us w T ithin the folds of its own Divine communion. 

Any thing lower than this life of communion 
with God in Christ is repudiated by the Christian 
ideal as an imperfect and sinful life. It may pos- 
sess much that the world calls virtue — it may be 
honest, industrious, and self-sacrificing — it may even 
show a strength and consistent manliness that some 
manifestations of the Christian life are found to fail 
in ; but, nevertheless, it is of an inferior quality. It 
not merely comes short of, but it does not really 
touch the Christian ideal; for it is impossible to 
separate the life of man from God without fatal 
injury to that life. If God is, and if we are his crea- 
tures, our being cannot grow into any healthy or 
perfect form while we remain divorced in spirit and 
love from him. Certain elements of character may 
flourish in us, but certain other and still more im- 
portant elements must be wanting. The rougher 
excellences of worldly virtue may be found, but not 
the deeper and gentler traits of pious affection. 
When the soul has not turned to the light of Di- 



128 BEGINNING LIFE. 

vine love, and learned to rest there amid the confu- 
sion and darkness of the present, there cannot be 
the fulness of sympathetic intelligence, and the 
strength and patience of hope, out of which the 
highest character grows. There may be much to 
admire, or respect, or even to love, but there cannot 
be the " beauty of holiness," nor the excellence of 
charity. These only live and flourish in the soul 
which has been awakened to a consciousness of 
Divine communion, and which, even in moments 
when it may fall below this communion, and forget 
its kindred with heaven, is yet sustained by a living- 
love, binding it with a quiet embrace. Every other 
life, however admirable or lovely for a time, will 
sink and grow dull when the flush of youth is gone 
and the canker of sorrow begins to prey on its early 
promise. 

This is, perhaps, more than any thing, the test 
of the Christian ideal, in comparison with all other 
ideals of life. As time wears on, it grows in dis- 
tinctness and brightens into a lovelier hue, while the 
ideals of mere culture or worldly ambition grow dim 
and vanish. The progress of years, more than any 
thing, brings out radical differences of character. 
In youth all are much alike. The most beautiful 
youth certainly may not appear the most religious — 
the captivation of gay spirits and of healthful de- 
velopment may carry off the palm; but afterward, 
when there is a greater drain upon the springs of 
life, and circumstances bring out more thoroughly 



WHAT TO AIM AT. 129 

all that is in us, the attractions of the outward cease, 
and the true character shines forth. Then the life 
which has sought its strength in secret converse 
with the Highest, bears fruit in chastened affections 
and enduring virtues. It matures into beauty and 
fruitfulness under the very same process by which 
the merely natural life is impaired and worn out. 
As the vivid brightness and genial happiness which 
give to the latter its youthful bloom fade away, 
there comes forth in the former a tempered strength 
of faith and hope and charity, which shall never 
fade, which has in it an incorruptible seed springing 
up into everlasting life. It is like the contrast of 
the wine in the first miracle which our Lord did at 
Cana of Galilee. Worldly ideals set before us the 
best wine first, and "afterward, when men have well 
drunk, then that which is worse ;" but in the Chris- 
tian ideal, "the best wane" is ever kept until now ! 
The last is always the best. The character ripens 
as it is proved, till at length it passes into the per- 
fect form of that life above which is at once its con- 
summation and its source. 

There is nothing more important for young men 
than to keep steadily before them the Christian ideal 
of life. Nothing lower should satisfy them. Noth- 
ing less will bless them. This may seem a hard 
saying. When we think of what life for the most 
part is, and what the life of the young too often is, 
it may appear as a day-dream to set forth this ideal 
as its aim anci end — to have the "life hid with 



130 BEGINNING LIFE, 

Christ in God." Surely this is an awful and distant 
reality for us all now, here in this world of daily 
toil and trivial pleasures, of selfish business, and 
sometimes as selfish religion. It may have done for 
St. Paul to aspire to such a life — he who " counted 
all things but loss for the excellency of the knowl- 
edge of Christ " — who burned to "fill up in his body 
what remained of the sufferings of Christ" — who 
was crucified to the world and "dead unto sin." It 
was a present, a common truth to him that his "con- 
versation was in heaven." " But shall we use such 
language?" it has been asked in our time, as the 
feeling of reality has grown, and men have shrunk 
from comparisons that seemed to shame them and 
to be far removed from them. 

Yes, we are bound to use such language; and 
still more, to keep in view the ideal which it sug- 
gests. The life of faith and love and holy converse 
with God is no mere esoteric blessing. It was not 
merely designed for St. Paul or the holy men of old. 
They urged it constantly as the common privilege 
and good of all Christians ; and our wish should be, 
not to part with the words which express it, but to 
strive after the realization of their blessed meaning. 
It is ideal, no doubt, in its perfection, but it is also 
real. Nay, it is the only reality worth having ; and 
miserably as we may often come short, we must on 
no account lose sight of it. We shall sink into utter 
worldliness if we do, and the shadows of death shall 
cover us from the light of heaven. 



WHAT TO AIM AT. 131 

Let not the Divine ideal, therefore, ever perish 
from your hearts. Quench it not by the darkness 
of sinful passion, or the neglect of hardening world- 
liness. Let it live brightly in your inner being, 
amid all the cares and sorrows and doubts of time. 
Whatever may be doubtful, this cannot be so — this 
image of purity and peace and heaven. Does it not 
rise all the more vividly against the shadowy back- 
ground of earth's confusions and miseries ? Limit 
it not by your narrowness ; dim it not by your su- 
perstition or your unbelief . Far as you may be from 
it, still lift your eyes toward it. And although, like 
the weary traveller amid Alpine heights, who sees 
before him the glory of the morning light, and aims 
to stand within its moving splendors, which vanish 
as he approaches, you may find it pass from the ful- 
ness of your possession here, and the unfulfilled vis- 
ion may haunt your dying dreams, yet fix steadily 
your heart upon it, for it is yours, although not now 
and near — the sure mark of the prize of the high 
calling of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 



PART II. 



BUSINESS. 





Y^HAT TO Do. 

'HE Christian ideal of life has seemed 
to many so far removed from the world 
and its ways, that they have been driven to 
seek after its attainments in an entire ab- 
straction from the world's business and 
pleasures. They have sought to flee from evil, and 
not to fight with it. But we rightly judge that this 
is at once inconsistent with Christian truth and 
futile as a moral aim. Our faith is " the victory that 
overcometh the world," and not the beaten foe that 
flies from it. The world is not merely the mass of 
evil and misery that is around us, but especially the 
evil that holds our own hearts— the enemy of spir- 
itual life and strength and peace that we carry with 
us wherever we go, and which is indeed often nearer 
to us in quiet solitude than in the stirring mart. 

Moreover, as the world is constituted, it is no 
question of choice, but of obvious necessity, that 
most men spend their lives in its business and em- 
ployments. Every one has his work to do. The 



136 BEGINNING LIFE. 

whole fabric of our modern civilization is nothing 
else than the development of the industrial principle 
which is implanted in our constitution, and divinely 
sanctified in this very fact. The earth was given to 
man to dress and keep it. He was appointed to 
find in work the appropriate activity and happiness 
of his being. And there is no law more clear in 
principle, more sure in result, than that which affixes 
to social industry, prosperity and blessing. The 
wealth of nations is its fruit, the glory of civilization 
its crown. 

To the young, who stand, as it were, on the 
threshold of the great workhouse of the world, pre- 
paring to take their part in it, it becomes a serious 
and urgent consideration what part they are to take 
in it. After the formation of Christian principles, 
the choice of a profession is the most serious con- 
sideration that can engage their attention. 

Perhaps the first step in the consideration is to 
realize the necessity of having definite work to do, 
and the real worth, and, if we may say so, sacred- 
ness of all honest work. There are few men who 
escape the necessity of adopting some calling or 
profession; and there are fewer still who, if they 
rightly understood their own interest and happi- 
ness, would ever desire such an escape. For, accord- 
ing to that law of work of which we have already 
spoken, life finds its most enjoyable action in regu- 
lar alternations of employment and leisure. With- 
out employment it becomes a tedium, and men are 



WHAT TO DO. 137 

forced to make work for themselves. They turn 
their very pleasures into toil, and undertake, from 
the mere want of something to do, the most labo- 
rious and exhausting pastimes. To any healthy 
nature, idleness is an intolerable burden, and its 
enforced endurance a more painful penance than 
the hardest labors. 

It is not easy, however, for the young to realize 
this. " Play " has been such a charm to their school- 
boy fancy, that they sometimes dream that they 
would like life to be all play. They are apt, at 
least, to take to regular work with something of a 
grudge. They have so many delays and difficulties 
about a profession, that time passes on and they 
miss their opportunity. Hardly any more serious 
calamity can happen to any young man than this ; 
and many a life has been wasted from sheer inca- 
pacity of fixing on what to do. The will gets feeble 
in the direction of self-denial of any kind, and tal- 
ents which might have carried their possessor on to 
social consideration and usefulness, serve merely to 
illumine an aimless and pitied existence. 

Young men who are, so to speak, born to work — 
to whom life leaves no chance of idleness — are per- 
haps the most fortunate. They take up the yoke in 
their youth. They set their face to duty from the 
first ; and if life should prove a burden, their backs 
become inured to it, so that they bear the weight 
more easily than others do pleasures and vanities. 
In our modern life this is a largely increasing class, 



138 BEGINNING LIFE. 

As the relations of society become more complica- 
ted, and its needs more enlarged, refined, and ex- 
pensive, the duty of work — of every man to his own 
work — becomes more urgent and universal. There 
is no room left for the idle. There are certainly no 
rewards to them. Society expects every man to do 
his duty; and its revenge is very swift when its 
claims are neglected or its expectations disap- 
pointed. 

But it is at least equally important for young 
men to begin life with an intelligent appreciation of 
work as a whole, and to free their minds from the 
prejudices which have so long prevailed on this sub- 
ject. It is singular how long and to what extent 
these prejudices have prevailed. Some kinds of 
employment have been deemed by traditionary opin- 
ion to be honorable, and such as gentlemen may 
engage in; others have been deemed to be base, 
and unfit for gentlemen. "Why so ? It would puz- 
zle any moralist to tell. The profession of a soldier 
is supposed to be the pecular profession of a gentle- 
man ; that of a tailor is the opprobrium of boys and 
the ridicule of small wits. Is there not something 
untrue as well as unworthy in the implied compari- 
son? There is surely no reason why industrial 
employments, involving a high exercise of intelli- 
gence and skill, should not be as honorable as the 
profession of a soldier; such employments are pe- 
culiarly characteristic of civilization, and rise with 
it into higher forms of utility; while the mere sol- 



WHAT TO DO. 139 

dier, even if his need should not decrease, must 
yet sink into comparative insignificance with the 
progress of Christian enlightenment and the wider 
diffusion of good government. 

Prejudices of this sort, however, are very invet- 
erate, and live long in sentiment after they have 
been defeated in reason. While we are losing sight 
of the usages of feudal times, its traditions still cling 
to us — traditions which are the legitimate descend- 
ants of the ignorance which led the mailed baron to 
boast that he had never learned to write — and which 
made it be deemed inconsistent with the position of 
a gentleman to do any thing but fight, or hunt, or 
spend his time in wassail. It is not necessary, cer- 
tainly, and would not be well for society to unlearn 
such traditions all at once. They connect age with 
age, and perhaps lend a softening influence to the 
vast changes which the modern development of 
wealth is calling forth; but they are not the less 
really ignorant; and when prolonged in force through 
a time whose social necessities have outlived them, 
they become purely mischievous. 

Such a time is ours. The protective or feudal 
idea of life is gone. The lord and his retainers — 
the castle and its dependents — are images of the 
past. Economical relations are everywhere sup- 
planting the old personal and authoritative relations 
which used to bind society together. Servants and 
masters, traders and customers, tenants and land- 
lords no longer occupy toward each other indefinite 



MO BEGINNING LIFE. 

attitudes of dependence, on the one hand, and of 
patronizing favor on the other hand. Each have 
their own definite position and interests — their fixed 
commercial relations to the others ; and within their 
own spheres and duties they are almost equally 
independent. 

This may be a bad or a good change. It is a 
subject of regret to many who look back upon the 
old state of things with sentiments of emotion as 
that to which their youth was familiar, and the 
memory of which pleasantly lingers with them. As 
life becomes a retrospect rather than a prospect, it 
is natural that the mind should cling to the old 
familiar forms of society, and repel, even with dis- 
like, the revolutions taking place around it. There 
is, no doubt, a good deal to excite regret in the 
accessories of the change. With the decline of the 
instincts of dependence, those of respectful courtesy 
and obedient charity are apt also to vanish. There 
is less free, lively, and affectionate intercourse of 
class with class, where the commercial feeling has 
displaced the old personal family feeling — an evil 
which may be seen working with special confusion 
at present in the department of domestic service. 
But whatever may be the disagreeable results of 
the change, as we see it proceeding under our eyes, 
it is beyond question an inevitable change, which 
we ought not therefore to regret, but to understand 
and make the most of for the good of society as a 
whole. It is the necessary consequence of the 



WHAT TO DO. 141 

enormous development of industrial life, and the 
rapidly accumulating wealth touching all classes of 
society, which flows from this development. And if 
society should seem to lose some of its old courte- 
sies in the course of things, we are to remember that 
the feeling of independence which has sprung up in 
exchange is a great gain. Society cannot lose in 
the end from its own progress. A widening field of 
human activity will be opened up in many direc- 
tions ; industrial employment of all kinds will rise to 
an equal value and worth, as the means of securing 
an honest and honorable livelihood. Men will learn 
to be ashamed of no work which gives them a solid 
footing in the struggling mass of social activity 
around them, and saves them from being a burden 
to others. 

It is the imperative duty of all who recognize the 
vast social revolution that is going on, if they can- 
not help to clear the pathway of the worker — male 
and female — at least to do nothing to obstruct it by 
the promulgation of obsolete and mischievous no- 
tions. Let the revolution silently work itself out. 
Let young men, and young women too, of whatever 
grade of life, to whom there may seem no opening 
in the now recognized channels of professional or 
domestic activity which have been conventionally 
associated with their position, make to themselves, 
as they may be able, an opening in the ranks of 
commercial or mechanical employment. If society, 
from its very increase of wealth and refinement, and 



14:2 BEGINNING LIFE. 

the expensive habits which necessarily flow from this 
increase, creates obstacles to an advantageous set- 
tlement in life after the old easy manner to many 
among the young, it certainly ought not by its 
prejudices to stand in the way of their launching 
upon the great world of life in their own behalf, and 
attaining to what industrial independence and pros- 
perity they can. 

It is at least a right and wise feeling for the 
young to cultivate — that there is no form of honest 
work which is really beneath them. It may or may 
not be suitable for them. It may or may not be 
the species of work to which they have any call. 
But let them not despise it. The grocer is equally 
honorable with the lawyer, and the tailor with the 
soldier, as we have already said. It is just as really 
becoming a gentleman — if we could purge our 
minds of traditional delusions wiiich will not stand 
a moment's impartial examination — to serve behind 
a counter as to sit at a desk, to pursue a handicraft 
as to indite a law paper or write an article. The 
only work that is more honorable, is work of higher 
skill and more meritorious excellence. It is the 
qualities of the workman, and not the name or na- 
ture of the work, that is the source of all real honor 
and respect. 

The professions to which life invites the young 
are of very various kinds ; and the question of choice 
among them, as it is very important, is sometimes 
also very trying and difficult. Rightly viewed, it 



WHAT TO BO. 143 

ought to be a question simply of capacity. "What 
am I fit for ? But it is more easy in many cases to 
ask this question than to answer it. It will certain- 
ly, however, facilitate an answer, to disembarrass the 
mind of such prejudices as we have been speaking 
of. The field of choice is in this manner left com- 
paratively open. Work as such, if it be honest 
work, is esteemed not for the adventitious associa- 
tions that may surround it, but because it offers an 
appropriate exercise for such powers as we possess, 
and a means of self-support and independence. 

There are those to whom the choice of a profes- 
sion presents comparatively few difficulties. They 
are gifted with an aptitude for some particular call- 
ing, in such a degree that they themselves and their 
friends discern their bent from early youth, and 
they grow up with no other desire than to betake 
themselves to what is acknowledged to be their des- 
tiny in the world. Such cases are, perhaps, the 
happiest of all; but they are far from numerous. 
A special aptitude is seldom so pronounced in 
youth. Even where it exists, it lies hid many a time, 
and unknown even to its possessor, till opportunity 
calls it forth. There are other cases where the cir- 
cumstances of the young are such as to mark out 
for them without deliberation on their part the pro- 
fession which they are to follow. Family traditions 
and social advantages may so clearly point their 
way in life that they never hesitate. They have 
never been accustomed to look in any other direc- 



144 BEGINNING LIFE. 

tion, and they take to their lot with a happy pride, 
or at least a cheerful contentment. 

But the great majority of young men are not to 
be found in either of these envied positions, They 
have their way to make in the world ; and they are 
neither so specially gifted on the one hand, nor so 
fortunately circumstanced on the other hand, as to 
see clearly and without deliberation the direction in 
which they should turn, and the fitting work to 
which they should give themselves. 

Many things must be considered by them and 
for them in such a case which we are not called 
upon to discuss here — which, indeed, we cannot dis- 
cuss here. The accidents of position, with which, 
after all, the balance of their lot may lie, vary so 
indefinitely that it would be impossible to indicate 
any clear line of direction for them. But without 
venturing to do this, it may be useful to fix the 
thoughts of the young upon certain general features 
of the various classes of professions that lie before 
them in the world open for their ambition and 
attainment. 

Professions may be generally classified as intel- 
lectual, commercial, and mechanical, excluding those 
which belong to the public service, such as the 
army and navy and the civil offices under govern- 
ment. These form by themselves a class of profes- 
sions of great importance. But the aptitudes which 
they require are, upon the whole, less determined, 
and therefore less easily characterized, than those 



WHAT TO DO. 145 

which the ordinary professions demand. A mer- 
chant or a shoemaker, or even a clergyman, may 
become, should circumstances summon him, a sol- 
dier or a diplomatist, but neither the soldier nor 
diplomatist could so easily assume the function of 
the merchant, or shoemaker, or clergyman. And for 
the simple reason that the function of these last is 
more definite, or professional, and therefore involves 
a more special aptitude, or one more easy of discov- 
ery and consideration. Not that for a moment we 
would be supposed to undervalue the inner faculties 
that go to make the excellent soldier or government 
official. Only in the former case the qualities of 
honor, bravery, and patriotism, are such as all men 
ought to possess — they are common attributes of a 
healthy humanity; and in the latter case, the very 
same qualities that point to official employment, 
and would be likely to obtain distinction in it, are 
such as are equally needed for some of the ordinary 
professions included in our classification. 

Neither must it be supposed, in making this 
classification, that the names we have used have 
any thing more than a general application warrant- 
ed by the talk of society, and therefore sufficiently 
intelligible. There are certain callings which soci- 
ety has agreed to consider more intellectual, more 
of the character of professions, and others which it 
regards as more peculiarly of a business or commer- 
cial character, and others again that are more of 
the nature of a craft or handiwork. In point of 

Beginning Lite. | 7 



146 BEGINNING LIFE. 

fact, all are intellectual in the sense of calling into 
exercise the intellectual powers ; and it may so hap- 
pen that more mental capacity may be shown in 
conducting affairs of business, or in inventing or 
applying some new mechanical agency, than in the 
discharge of the duties of the intellectual profes- 
sions, commonly so called. This does not, however, 
affect the propriety of the classification. The sub- 
ject-matter of the callings is nevertheless distinct. 
Those of the first class deal more largely and direct- 
ly with the intellectual nature of. man; they involve 
a more special mental training; while those of the 
other two classes deal more with the outward indus- 
trial activities, and are presumed not to require so 
prolonged or careful an intellectual education. 

This obvious distinction serves to mark generally 
the qualities that are demanded in these respective 
orders of professions. Whether a man is to be a 
clergyman, lawyer — using the word in its largest 
sense as including the profession of the bar— physi- 
cian, or a merchant, an engineer, or an ordinary 
tradesman, should depend, in a general way at least, 
on the comparative vivacity and force of his intel- 
lectual powers. A youth who has but little intellec- 
tual interest, who cares but little or not at all for 
literary study and the delights of scholastic ambi- 
tion, is shut out by nature from approach to the 
former professions. They are not Ids calling in any 
high or even useful sense. He may approach them 
and enter upon them, and a certain worldly success 



WHAT ,T0 DO. 147 

may even await him in them under the favor&g 
gale of circumstances ; but according to any real 
standard of excellence or utility, he has missed his 
proper course in life. He may have found what he 
wanted, but others will often have failed to find in 
him what they were entitled to expect. 

Take the case of a clergyman, for example. We 
do not forget that in this case there are certain qual- 
ities of still higher consideration and moment than 
even the intellectual; but we do not meddle with 
these here. These qualities may be supposed by 
some to isolate the function of a clergyman alto- 
gether from the ordinary avocations of life; but 
even such a view would not affect the bearing of our 
remarks. Practically, the function of the Christian 
ministry is and will always be one of the main chan- 
nels into which youthful activity is directed in this 
and every Christian country. Look at the work of 
this ministry then, and it will be obvious at once 
what a fatal deficiency is the want of intellectual 
interest. The very truths with which it deals, in 
their original meaning, their history, their moral 
and social influence, must remain in a great degree 
unintelligible when there is not a constant pleasure 
in studying them. It is needless to say that they 
are so simple that a child may understand them. 
In one sense this is true. But the child-understand- 
ing, however precious, is not the understanding of 
the well-instructed scribe, who is able to bring forth 
from his treasury things new and old. It is melan- 



148 BEGINNING LIFE. 

cht>ly to think what wreck many make in this way 
by turning the deep things of God into baby-prat- 
tle, and narrowing the grand circumference of Chris- 
tian truth to their own small circle of ideas. Every- 
where Christianity suffers with the decay of living- 
thought, and the poverty of intellectual comprehen- 
sion in the clergy ; and there never was a darker or 
sadder delusion than that which infected, and may 
still infect certain classes of society, that a man 
whose mental capacities did not promise much suc- 
cess in the world might yet be useful in the church. 
It is not, perhaps, too much to say that one-half of 
the evils which have retarded the progress of Chris- 
tian truth, and perilled the very existence of the 
Christian church, have come, not, as is often said, 
from unsanctified talent, but from the degrading 
influence of mean talents, and the narrowness of 
thought. 

The same is no less true of the bar or legal pro- 
fession in all its bearings, and of the profession of 
medicine. Each of these professions demands a 
vivacious intellectual interest, powers of real and 
independent thought. Neither their principles can 
be grasped, nor their highest applications to the 
well-being of society appreciated, without these. 
All, it may be said, are not required to rise so high ; 
there must be common as well as higher workmen 
in all professions — " hewers of wood and drawers of 
water," as well as men of wide and commanding 
intelligence. And this is true. Only the question 



WHAT TO DO. 149 

remains, whether those who never rise above the 
mechanical routine of higher professions would not 
have been really more happy and useful in some 
lower department of industry. In contemplating a 
profession none should willingly set before them the 
prospect of being nothing but a Gibeonite in it. 
And yet this must be the fate, and deserves to be 
the fate of all who rush towards work for which 
nature has given them no special capacity. By aim- 
ing beyond their pow&r, they are likely to fall short 
of the competency and success that, in some more 
congenial form of work, might have awaited them. 

It seems so far, therefore, that there is a suffi- 
ciently plain line of guidance as to the choice of a 
profession. If your interest is not in study, if your 
bent is not intellectual, then there is one large class 
of professions for which you are not destined. You 
may be intellectual, highly so, and yet you may not 
choose any of these professions ; circumstances may 
render this inadvantageous ; or, while your intellec- 
tual life is inquisitive and powerful, your active am- 
bition may be no less powerful, and may carry you 
away. But at any rate, if you have not a lively 
interest in intellectual pursuits, neither the church, 
nor the bar, nor medicine is your appropriate pro- 
fessional sphere. Tou can never be in any of these 
a " workman needing not to be ashamed." 

Nor let it be supposed that there is any thing 
derogatory in this lack of intellectual interest in the 
sense in which we now mean. It by no means 



150 BEGINNING LIFE. 

implies intellectual ignorance or indisposition to 
knowledge, but simply no predominating desire for 
study as a habit and mode of life. It is not the 
book in the quiet room that interests you so much 
as the busy ways of the world, the commercial in- 
tercourse of men, or, it may be, some mechanical 
craft to which your thoughts are ever turning and 
your hands inclining. How constantly are such 
differences observed in boys! Scholastic tastes 
weary and stupefy some, who* are all alert as soon 
as the unwelcome pressure is lifted from their minds 
and their energies are allowed their natural play. 
Their aptitude is not for classic lore ; their delight 
is not in lore at all, but in active work of some 
kind, the interest of which is of an every-day prac- 
tical character. 

The simple rule in such a case is — follow your 
bent. It may not show itself so particularly as in 
some cases we have already supposed ; but, at least, 
it is so far manifest. It is clearly not in certain 
directions, and so far therefore the field of your 
choice is limited. Probe a little deeper and more 
carefully, and it may come more plainly into view. 
And remember, one bent is really as honorable as 
another, although it may not aim so high. The 
young merchant is just as clearly " called " as the 
young clergyman, if he feel the faculty of business 
stirring in him. And who seem often more called 
than great mechanicians — men often with little gen- 
eral knowledge, and little intellectual taste and sym- 



WHAT TO DO. 151 

pathy, but who have a creative faculty of design, as 
determinate in its ways as the art of the painter or 
the poet ? 

These are special cases. But in ordinary youth 
something of the same kind may be observed. There 
are boys designed by nature for commercial life ; 
there are others plainly designed for mechanical 
employment. Nature has stamped their destiny 
upon them in signs which show themselves, if sought 
after. Let not them and their friends try to coun- 
tersign the seal of nature. This is always a griev- 
ous harm — a harm to the individual, and. a possible 
harm to the world. 

Even where Nature's indications may be obscure, 
there seems no other rule than to trace and follow 
them, fc Some boys of healthy and well-developed 
faculties'^ or, still more likely, of weak and unem- 
phatic qualities, may seem to have no particular 
destiny in the world. Yet they have. Their place 
is prepared for them, if they can find it. And their 
only hope of doing so is to observe Nature, and fol- 
low it. She may not have written her lines broadly 
on their souls, but she has put tracings there, which 
may be found and followed. There, are a few who 
may seem to find their position in the world more 
by accident than any thing else. Circumstances 
determine their lot, and without any thought of 
theirs, they seem to get into the place most fitting 
them. Tet even in such cases, circumstances are 
often less powerful than are supposed, or, at least, 



152 BEGINNING LIFE. 

they have wrought with nature, and this unconscious 
conformity has proved the strongest influence in 
fashioning such lives to prosperity and success. 

It remains to be added that, while the view we 
have expressed of the worth of all honest work is 
to be strongly maintained, there are, no doubt, dif- 
ferences in work which, in relation to certain char- 
acters and temperaments, assume a moral impor- 
tance. There are professions which have capacities 
of evil for certain natures, as there are others which 
have in themselves capacities for good, if rightly 
used. Tfce saying of Dr. Arnold, as to the profes- 
sion of the law, may be remembered. It seemed to 
him a bad profession, and he would not, he strongly 
protested, have any of his sons enter upon it. This 
was a narrow and even false view. Dr. Arnold, 
great man as he was, was not exempt fronf extreme 
prejudices, as this shows. Tet it points, like many 
extreme views, to a partial truth. The law, grand 
and noble profession as it is in its higher, and in- 
deed in all its right relations, presents, at the same 
time, peculiar possibilities of evil to an unstable or 
unconscientious will. It offers peculiar temptations. 
And there are. other professions equally dangerous, 
if we may so say. They are apt to bring into play 
the inferior, and to hold in check the superior ele- 
ments of our nature. They put a constant strain 
upon the moral life which it requires very healthy 
or unusual powers to withstand. Such professions 
are not bad, but they are trying; and it must be a 



WHAT TO DO. 153 

serious consideration with the young, if they are 
fitted for such a trial. 

It would be needless to say, avoid such profes- 
sions ; because, in point of fact, they are not to be 
avoided. They exist because the necessities of soci- 
ety demand them — of course, I am not speaking of 
any but entirely honest professions, which in their 
conception involve no violation of moral princi- 
ple — they flourish as thes6 same necessities become 
more complicated and refined; and while they do 
so, young men will seek their career in them lauda- 
bly and well. It is vain and foolish, in such a mat- 
ter, to broach mere theories- — to cry where none will 
follow. But it is our duty to guide those who need 
guidance ; to say that such a door is open for some 
and not for others. For strong natures there is 
strong work ; for weak and less certain natures there 
is also work, but not of the same kind. The back 
is fitted to the burden in a higher sense than is 
sometimes meant, if only the back do not overtask 
its powers-, and assume to carry weight that was 
never meant for it. 








Wow to Do Tt. 

^UPPOSING a young man to have cho- 
sen a profession and entered upon it, his 
next aim must be how to do well in it. This 
must be a thought inseparable from his 
choice, if it has been freely and rightly con- 
ducted. The profession or work which we have 
selected to do in the world becomes the great chan- 
nel of our regular and every-day activity ; and how 
we shall order this activity in the best manner, so 
as most effectually to secure its reward and our own 
happiness, must be an anxiety to all beginning life. 
Beyond doubt, the first condition of success in 
every profession is earnest devotion to its acquire- 
ments and duties. This may seem so obvious a 
remark, that it is scarcely worth making. And yet, 
with all its obviousness, the thing itself is often for- 
gotten by the young. They are frequently loath to 
admit the extent and urgency of professional claims; 
and they try to combine with these claims devotion 
to some favorite and even it may be conflicting pur- 
suit. This almost invariably fails. In rare cases 
it may be practicable with men of varied and 



HOW TO DO IT. 155 

remarkable powers. But, ordinarily, there is no 
chance of success in professional life for any who 
do not make the business of their profession, what- 
ever it may be, their great interest, to which every 
other, save religion, must subordinate itself. 

"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with 
thy might," is the motto of all industrial activity. 
In such a time as ours, it is so more than ever. If 
we do not do our work with might, others will; and 
they will outstrip us in the race, and pluck the prize 
from our grasp. " The race is not always to the swift, 
nor the battle to the strong," says the same wise 
man. And this is true in various forms and illus- 
trations; but scarcely ever in the race of business, 
or in the battle of industrial life. There the swiftest 
wins the prize, and the strongest gains in the strife. 

As modern society is constituted, this element of 
strife is everywhere apparent. Competition, as it is 
called, in its action and reaction, makes up the great 
and ever-i&panding circle of industrial civilization. 
There may be many modifications of this principle 
demanded, in order to the complete and happy de- 
velopment of society. It would seem as if such 
modifications must come in the natural course of 
things, and with a growing consciousness of the 
moral conditions of social progress. But whatever 
checks may await the principle — however its opera- 
tion may be relaxed and softened in various direc- 
tions — it will always remain the essential spring of 
industrial activity. It will always be the fly-wheel 



156 BEGINNING LIFE. 

of the world's business. And being so, it is clear 
that this business must task the earnest and steady 
devotion of all who engage in it. It will not wait 
the delays and off-puttings of the man who gives it 
merely a share of his attention. While he is dawd- 
ling with a clever restlessness, it may be, it is pass- 
ing from his hands into others' with a stronger and 
more persistent hold. Strength is every thing in 
such a struggle — strength and opportunity ; and 
the latter waits like a faithful servitor upon the 
former. 

It ought to be a first principle, then, in begin- 
ning life, to do with earnestness what we have got 
to do. If it is worth doing at all, it is worth doing 
earnestly. If it is to be done well at all, it must be 
done with purpose and devotion. Whatever may be 
our profession, let us mark all its bearings and de- 
tails, its principles, its instruments, its applications. 
There is nothing about it should escape our study. 
There is nothing in it either too high or teo low for 
our observation and knowledge. While w T e remain 
ignorant of any part of it, we are so far crippled in 
its use ; we are liable to be taken at a disadvantage. 
This may be the very point the knowledge of which 
is most needed in some crisis, and those versed in it 
will take the lead, while w T e must be content to fol- 
low at a distance. 

Our business, in short, must be the main drain 
of our intellectual activities day by day. It is the 
channel we have chosen for them ; they must flow 



HOW TO DO IT. 157 

in it with a diffusive energy, filling every nook and 
corner. This is a fair test of professional earnest- 
ness. When we find our thoughts running after our 
business, and fixing themselves with a familiar fond- 
ness upon its details, we may be pretty sure of our 
way. When we find them running elsewhere, and 
only resorting with difficulty to the channel prepared 
for them, we may be equally sure w T e have taken a 
wrong turn. We cannot be earnest about any thing 
which does not naturally and strongly engage our 
thoughts. 

It will be found everywhere that the men who 
have succeeded in business have been the men who 
have earnestly given themselves to it. Far more 
than mere talents or acquirements, enthusiasm and 
energy in work carry the day. Every thing yields 
before the strong and earnest will. It grows by 
exercise. It excites confidence in others, while it 
takes to itself the lead. Difficulties, before which 
mere cleverness fails, and whidrieave the irresolute 
prostrate and helpless, vanish before it. They not 
only do not impede its progress, but it often makes 
of them stepping-stones to a higher and more en- 
during triumph. 

There are few things more beautiful than the 
calm and resolute progress of an earnest spirit. 
The triumphs of genius may be more dazzling ; the 
chances of good fortune may be more exciting ; but 
neither are at all so interesting or so worthy as the 
achievements of a steady, faithful, and fervent en- 



158 BEGINNING LIFE. 

ergj. The moral elements give an infinitely higher 
value to the latter, while at the same time they 
bring it comparatively within the reach of all. Ge- 
' nius can be the lot of only a few ; good fortune may 
come to any, but it would be the part of a fool to 
wait for it ; whereas all may work with heartiness 
and might in the work to which they have given 
themselves. It is their simple duty to do this. It 
may seem but a small thing to do. No one cer- 
tainly is entitled to any credit for doing it. Yet just 
because it is a duty it will be found bearing a rich 
reward. The labor of the faithful is never in vain. 
The fruits will be found gathered into his hand, 
while the hasty garlands of genius are fading away, 
and the prizes of the merely fortunate are turned 
into vanity. 

Where there is an adequately earnest devotion 
to the duties of one profession, it is likely that all 
the more ordinarv^business qualifications will fol- 
low. It may be well, however, to specify a few of 
these by way of impressing them upon the youthful 
mind. They are usually associated with the posi- 
tion and duties of the merchant and the tradesman 
rather than the barrister or the clergyman ; but, in 
point of fact, they are applicable to all professions. 
All require them, and all suffer from the absence of 
them. * ' 

Among the most obvious and necessary of these 
qualifications is punctuality. Whatever we have to 
do should be done at the right time. To the busy 



HOW TO DO IT. 159 

man there is nothing more valuable than time. 
Every hour and every moment becomes filled up 
with its appointed duties; and attention to these 
duties at the moment when they fall to be performed 
is of the very essence of a business character. It is 
marvellous how comparatively easy the discharge of 
business becomes when this simple rule is observed, 
and how difficult and complicated it becomes w 7 hen 
it is disregarded. It may be safely said that no 
man can rise to distinction as a merchant, a barris- 
ter, or a physician, or indeed in any profession 
involving a complexity of work, without a strict ob- 
servance of punctuality. In some professions it may 
not be customary to exact or expect the same regard 
to this rule ; but this is entirely without any warrant 
in reason, or the nature of the duties to which the 
indulgence may be applied. For it is impossible to 
conceive any duties, not absolutely accidental, be- 
yond the rule of punctuality. Touch them w T ith this 
rule, and they will fall into order ; leave then* inde- 
pendent of it, and inextricable confusion will be the 
result. 

Look at the matter as it plainly appears on re- 
flection. If our time be filled up wdth professional 
duties, every one of these duties falls into its own 
place. Thjere is an appropriate time for each — and 
punctuality is nothing else than attention to this. 
But the unpunctual man breaks down at some point. 
The duty remains undone, and the time for doing it 
is past. The inevitable result is that he more or 



160 BEGINNING LIFE. 

less breaks clown at every subsequent point. It is 
like tlie links of *a chain stretched to the full — every 
link in its own place. But take out or abbreviate 
one link, and all fall into confusion. If a given duty 
remains undone at the proper point, it must en- 
croach upon the time of some other duty, or remains 
undone altogether. 

It might seem an easy thing to be punctual, but 
it is not an easy thing. It does not come to us 
naturally. No habits of order do, as may be ob- 
served in the utter disorder that characterizes sav- 
age life, and low and untutored forms of life among 
ourselves. Punctuality is something we all have to 
learn; and of every profession — of all work — it is 
one of the first lessons — a lesson not only indispen- 
sable to ourselves, but due to others. How much 
so, every one knows who has to do with the unpunc- 
tual man. All is deranged by him ; the time of oth- 
ers is wasted as well as his own. He becomes a 
nuisance in society ; and men who have real work of 
their own would rather do any thing than do busi- 
ness with him. 

Every young man, therefore, should acquire 
punctuality among his first professional acquire- 
ments. Let him resolve to keep time — to do every 
thing in its place. Let him not yield to the delu- 
sion, common enough among the young, that this is 
an unimportant matter, in the power of any man, 
and which he can practise when he has more real 
need for it than as yet he has. Vain expectation ! 



HOW TO DO IT. 161 

If he begins by neglecting it lie will most assuredly 
end by neglecting it. Nothing is so hard to unlearn 
as a bad habit of this kind. Scarcely is nature more 
potent than in the effect of education. It cleaves to 
the will even after the reason may strongly recog- 
nize its selfishness and inconvenience. 

Another business qualification, although not so 
essential as the foregoing, is despatch. It is less of 
a moral qualification — more of a mental accomplish- 
ment. It is, however, in most professions, a very 
important accomplishment. Bis dat, qui cito dat. 
And the same thing might be said of work, when 
the quickness with which it is done is not the quick- 
ness of perfunctory and therefore imperfect per- 
formance, but the quickness of a skilful and ready 
accomplishment. It is one of the great functions of 
a professional life to form this accomplishment; 
and every young man should certainly aim to have 
it. First, indeed, he should learn to do his work 
thoroughly. There is nothing can make up for the 
want of thoroughness. If he aim at despatch irre- 
spective of this, he commits a fundamental mistake. 
He is like a man sharpening his weapons without 
testing their strength. And there are men who seem 
to do this. They acquire a smart and facile activ- 
ity, which skims over a subject without laying hold 
of it. Despatch, in this sense, is not to be studied, 
but avoided. For it is better to do work thorough- 
ly, however slowly or interruptedly, than to do work 
imperfectly, with whatever promptitude. 



162 BEGINNING LIFE. 

With this reserve it is well to cultivate despatch 
in business — not to dally over what may be done at 
once and promptly. Every one feels how much 
more satisfactory it is to have work done quickly, 
if also well. Nothing, in fact, more makes the dif- 
ference between the really good workman in any 
department and the inferior workman than the 
promptitude with which he carries out any piece of 
business intrusted to him. The more complicated 
business becomes, and the more it strains the ener- 
gies, the more wonderfully would it seem to call forth 
these energies in many cases, so that a large amount 
of work is done both better and more promptly than 
a small amount in other cases. It is the triumph of 
method. The genius of arrangement overcomes the 
greatest difficulties, and secures results that would 
have appeared incredible without it. 

The despatch that is really desirable comes in 
this way from a close attention to method. Quick- 
ness itself should not be so much the aim, because 
this may lead to summary and imperfect work ; but 
quickness following from the perfection of a method 
which takes up everything at the right time and 
applies to it the adequate resources. This is the 
secret of a genuine promptitude. It is the issue of 
aright system more than any thing. 

Every profession implies system. There can be 
no efficiency and no advance without it. The mean- 
est trade demands it, and would run to waste with- 
out something of it. The perfection of the most 



HOW TO DO IT. 163 

complicated business, is the perfection of the sys- 
tem with which it is conducted. It is this that binds 
its complications together, and gives a unity to all 
its energies. It is like a hidden sense pervading it, 
responsive at every point, and fitly meeting every 
demand. The marvellous achievements of modern 
commerce, stretching its relations over distant seas 
and many lands, and gathering the materials of 
every civilization within its ample bosom, are, more 
than any thing, the result of an expanding and vic- 
torious system, which shrinks at no obstacles and 
adapts itself to every emergency. 

Accordingly, the professional man places the 
highest value upon system. However clever, inge- 
nious, or fruitful in expedients a youth may be, if he 
is erratic and disorderly in his personal or mental 
habits, he is thereby unfitted for many kinds of 
work. The plodding and methodical youth will 
outstrip him, and leave him behind ; and this is not 
merely in the more mechanical professions, but to a 
great extent also in the more intellectual profes- 
sions. Life itself, with all its free and happy out- 
goings, is systematic. Order reigns everywhere. 
And in no business of life can this great principle 
be neglected with impunity. Even on those who 
seem to obey it least externally, it operates. The 
very force that sustains them, and which, in its 
apparently irregular action, might seem to be defi- 
ant of all law, is only preserved at all by some 
enveloping although undefined order. 



164 BEGINNING LIFE. 

The young must keep before them this necessity 
of all business. They may hear it sometimes spo- 
ken of among their fellows with indifference or scorn. 
"Red tape " has passed into a by-word of contempt; 
and "red tape" in the sense of a mere dead and 
unintelligent routine, has deserved many hard things 
to be said of it. A man of routine, and nothing else, 
is a poor creature. System, which ceases to be a 
means, and becomes in itself — apart from the very 
object for which it was originally designed — an end, 
proves itself, in this very fact, a nuisance, to be 
swept away — the sooner the better. But the abuse 
of a thing is no argument against its use ; and it is 
childish not to see this in any case. Routine, in and 
for itself, has no value ; and the mind that settles on 
the mere outside of work, forgetful of its inner 
meaning and real aim, is necessarily a mind of fee- 
ble and narrow energies ; but routine, as an organ 
of energetic thought and action — of a living, com- 
prehensive intelligence, which sees the end from the 
means — is one of the most powerful instruments of 
human accomplishment. And there can be no pro- 
fession without its appropriate and effective routine. 

Let every youthful aspirant carefully learn the 
letter, without forgetting the spirit of his profession. 
Let him subdue his energies to its system, but not 
allow the system to swallow up his energies. Let 
him be a man of routine, but let him be something 
more. Let him be master of its machinery, but 
capable -of rising above it. With the former he can 



HOW TO DO IT. 165 

not dispense, without the latter he can not be great 
or successful.* 

But there is one qualification, in conclusion, more 
important than all- — conscientiousness. "Whatever be 
our profession, we should not only learn its duties 
carefully, and devote ourselves to them earnestly, 
but we should carry the light and guidance of con- 
science with us into all its details and relations. 
"Why should we particularize this? Conscience, of 
course, should animate and guide our whole life, 
and our business neither more nor less than other 
aspects of our life. Exactly so. This is the very 
thing we desire to show. And it requires particular 
mention, just because it is the very thing we are apt 

* The following remarks on the importance of method in busi- 
ness, by the author of " Essays written in the Intervals of Busi- 
ness," well deserve the attention of the young reader : 

"Our student is not intended to become a learned man, but a 
man of business ; not a 'full man,' but a 'ready man.' He must 
be taught to arrange and express what he knows. For this pur- 
pose let him employ himself in making digests, arranging and 
classifying materials, writing narratives, and in deciding upon 
conflicting evidence. All these exercises require method. He 
must expect that his early attempts will be clumsy ; he begins, 
perhaps, by dividing his subject in any way that occurs to him, 
with no other view than that of treating separate portions of it 
separately ; he does not perceive, at first, what things are of one 
kind, and what of another, and what should be the logical order 
of those following. But from such rude beginnings method is 
developed ; and there is hardly any degree of toil for which he 
would not be compensated by such a result. He will have a sure 
reward in the clearness of his own views, and in the facility of ex- 
plaining them to others. People bring their attention to the man 
who gives them most profit for it ; and this will be one who is a 
master of method." 



166 BEGINNING LIFE. 

to forget, practically, in tlie midst of professional 
activity, notwithstanding tliat it seems so obvious. 
Every profession lias its peculiar temptations — its 
guiles calculated to lay conscience to sleep. Some 
have more than others ; but none can be said to be 
free from such snares. Is it wrong to do this, or allow 
that? May certain things not be done in the way of 
business that would cearcely be justifiable in private 
life? May not a professional position be fairly used 
for such and such ends? Such puzzles for con- 
science beset every profession ; and notoriously they 
often receive solutions in consonance neither with 
religion nor morality. g 

Yet the true dictate of conscience everywhere 
must be, that there is nothing right or lawful in 
business that would not be so in the relations of 
private life. There cannot be two codes of honor or 
honesty. I cannot be an honest man, and not shrink 
from dishonesty in every shape. I cannot use my 
profession for any purpose which, apart from my 
profession, it would be evil in me to compass. In 
every thing — in the competitions of business, in the 
conflicts of ambition, in the rivalries of trade — Chris- 
tian principle must be my guide. Never with impu- 
nity can the light of conscience be obscured, nor its 
scruples overbalanced. 

Let the young take with them this principle into 
the entanglements of the world's affairs. Conscience 
may not always serve them as a positive guide. 
There may be intricacies which it cannot unravel. 



HOW TO DO IT. 167 

But at least it will always serve them as a nega- 
tive warning. "When conscience clearly pronounces 
against any practice of business, they must shun it. 
They must not tamper with it. They must be able 
to court the light of day in all they do. It is a sor- 
ry and pitiable shift when it becomes desirable to 
hide from scrutiny the inner mechanism of any pro- 
fession. 

The business which bases itself on conscience is 
stronger in this very fact than in the most skilful 
trade maneuvres. It is fair, and nothing tells in the 
end so well as fairness. The feeling of responsibil-* 
ity and the love of truth give not only strength, but 
"endow with diligence, accuracy, and discreetness, 
those commonplace requisites for a good man of 
business, without which all the rest may never come 
to be ' translated into action.' "* The gilding wears 
off the most ingenious devices; the novelty fades 
away ; the pretence appears below the mask ; but 
the true gold of principle shines the more brightly 
the more it is tested, and endures as fresh as ever 
after all changes. 

* Essays written in the Intervals of Business, p. 93. 



PART III. 



STUDY. 



Beginning Life,' 





HE busiest professional life has its mo- 
ments of leisure. It is the impulse and 
duty of every right-minded man to secure 
time for himself and his personal culture, 
as well as time for his business. This is 
something quite different from allowing any favorite 
or distracting pursuit to interfere with business. 
The one course, all men who would succeed in their 
profession would shun. The other course, all men 
who would not be mere professional machines will 
follow. 

And what never ceases to be more or less a duty 
throughout life, is an imperative duty to the young. 
Their hours of leisure recur regularly, their profes- 
sional work has its formal limits of time; and be- 
yond these limits they have comparatively few cares 
or anxieties. Their minds are yet fresh and vigor- 
ous, athirst for knowledge, if not ruined by self- 
indulgence or spoiled by early education. To them 
those hours still in the morning of life which they 
can devote to self-culture, are among the most pre- 
cious of all their life. "Is it possible," it has been 



172 BEGINNING LIFE. 

asked, " to overrate the preciousness of the intervals 
of leisure, which, afford a temporary release from the 
daily task, and restore the mind to its self-posses- 
sion, and to the consciousness of its noblest powers 
and its highest aims? To one who is capable of 
appreciating its uses, every such pause is an emer- 
ging out of the grosser element, in wl^ich one is 
carried on blindly by the current, into the air and 
clear light, where the feet find a firm resting-place. 
It is an indispensable condition of every large out- 
look on the world without, and of all true insight 
into the world within. A condition ; it is that, but 
nothing more. A golden opportunity ; but one 
which may prove worse than useless." The young 
have this opportunity in their own hands. It may 
be wasted to their hurt, or even their ruin, but it 
may also be improved to their highest advantage. 

The education of school is the mere portal to 
the higher education which every one may give to 
himself. In many cases, in fact, it may be said that 
education does not begin till we leave school. The 
mental energies are disciplined and brought into 
activity, the capacity is formed ; but the real life of 
thought is seldom awakened till those years of early 
manhood when most men have ceased to be under 
tutors and governors. It is sometimes strange how 
high mere scholastic training may go, and yet leave 
the general intellectual life dull and feeble. In all, 
save very rare cases, it seems to require that con- 
tact with reality which comes from intercourse with 



HOW TO READ. 173 

the world to quicken and fully develop the intellect. 
And it is only after this quickening has begun that 
our higher and enduring education may be said to 
proceed. No doubt there are certain elements of 
education which, if not acquired at school, can 
scarcely ever afterward be acquired. It is hard to 
learn certain things after the first freshness and 
tenacity of memory are gone. It is impossible, per- 
haps, to learn them thoroughly. No man, proba- 
bly, ever made himself a first-rate scholar who had 
not mastered the peculiarities of the ancient classi- 
cal languages while yet comparatively £& boy. But 
valuable as such an acquisition in every point of 
view is, it is nothing more, strictly speaking, than 
an instrument of education. It is a charmed key 
to unlock treasures of intellectual knowledge that 
must remain closed, or nearly so, to those who can- 
not use it. This capacity of use has not been got 
without mental stimulus and strengthening. Yet it 
is only after the years of reflection and critical ap- 
preciation have arrived, that even so valuable # 
power can be said to become a living and genuine 
education. 

This must come in all cases from spontaneous 
rather than from forced impulse, from the free move- 
ment of the awakened mind rather than from the 
constrained and tutored guidance of the merely 
awakening mind. In the stage of scholastic pupil- 
age many influences move the young, apart from 
the real desire of knowledge — emulation, ambition, 



174 BEGINNING LIFE. 

the desire to stand well in the judgment of others — 
motives, no "doubt, fair and liberal and full of prom- 
ise, but yet entirely distinct from an interest in study 
itself, and quite consistent with a real indifference 
and even distaste for it. It is only when all such 
motives are withdrawn, when the youth is subject to 
no attraction but of the pursuit itself — disengaged 
from those which had been combined with it, if they 
did not supply its place — only when his exertions 
are animated by this purely spontaneous and truly 
philosophical motive, can it be known either by him- 
self or others what is really in him. How often has 
it happened that those who had won the most brill- 
iant distinction in a competitive career have sunk 
into inaction and obscurity when the immediate ob- 
ject was attained; while noiseless steps, sustained 
by the pure love of knowledge, and in the face of 
the greatest difficulties and discouragements, have 
unheedingly and almost unconsciously gained a 
summit of admiring fame !"* 

• Of this higher self-education, every thing that a 
man meets with in this world — all that he observes, 
and all that lie does — may be instruments. His 
profession, the accidents which surround it, the in- 
terest which it creates and promotes, have the effect 
of sharpening his mind to a keener and more real, 
or of opening it to a wider view of things. "While 
still at school, the world appears to us in vague and 

$ Bishop of St. David's Address to the Members of the Edin- 
burgh Philosophical Institution. 



HOW TO HEAD. 175 

shadowy outline. We move only on the circumfer- 
ence of it. Its exciting realities are at a distance, 
both by reason of our imperfect comprehension of 
them, and the close family life which veils them from 
our gaze. This is the blessing of youth, that the 
dawning intelligence should abide, as it were, in a 
secluded nest of love till it receive wings to soar 
away. But when the time of its flight comes, there 
is a great world of knowledge opened to it. Things 
which it only saw dimly and far off before are now 
brought near to it. Life, with its intense interests 
and conflicts, is felt to be a reality in which it min- 
gles and has its part. Such intellectual experiences 
spring up at every stage of its first progress, and to 
all w T ho improve these experiences there may be in 
them an education of the highest kind. 

In one point of view, no doubt, this knowledge 
of the w r orld is fraught with extreme danger to the 
young. It proves to many of them in every suc- 
ceeding generation little more than the "opening of 
their eyes" to know good and evil; yet as the change 
is inevitable, it is useless to regret it on this score. 
It must come, and while it brings with it its chances 
of hurt, it is also a great opportunity of intellectual 
enlargement to those who rightly use it. It is 
something like the flight of the young birds from 
the parent nest. The experiment is one of trial, 
but it must be made, and amid its perils there is 
the secret joy of power and of acquisition. The 
world is no longer the roof-tree of branches, the 



176 BEGINNING LIFE. 

warm "contiguity of shade" wliich has hitherto 
sheltered them, but the wide expanse of heaven, 
and the multiplied and glorious forms of nature, in 
whose never-ceasing activity they find the strength 
and happiness of their being. 

The world must be to all a constant and insen- 
sible education. To many it is the most real and 
earnest education they ever receive. The days of 
school may never have been to such, or have faded 
from their memory. The days of spontaneous cul- 
ture from direct intellectual sources may never have 
come to them ; but their intercourse with the world 
has given forth a continued intellectual influence, 
under which their powers have been excited and 
sometimes nurtured into rare gifts. I£ is* not such 
remarkable cases indeed that we are now contem- 
plating. But the existence of such cases serves to 
prove to what extent mere converse with life and its 
experiences may be the means not merely of making 
us more clever and skilful, but of really developing 
• and enriching our mental resources — of cultivating 
within us a ripe and sympathetic faculty of wisdom, 
which is one of the highest results of knowledge. 

And if the world of human life be thus educative, 
the world of nature is equally or still more so. It 
is a constant school of high thoughts to all who love 
and study it. Who has not felt the singular awaken- 
ing of intelligence that sometimes comes in early 
manhood from a mere walk into the quiet country 
in the fresh morning or the still evening ! It is dif- 



HOW TO BEAD. 177 

ficult to say bow it is — but at such times the soul 
seems to take a start— to receive a new insights — to 
come forth in new and more sensitive vigor. Limits 
which have hitherto bound it fall away. Shadows 
with which it has been fighting fly off, and it escapes 
into an atmosphere of divine reality. This is the 
secret of its sudden expansion. It is in some meas- 
ure the same process, although arising from a dif- 
ferent cause, and wholly free from all evil admix- 
ture, as that which takes place when the youth 
enters into his first free contact with the world. 
The great face of living fact in either case evokes 
. the forces of his being as they have not been evoked 
before. The soul leaps from its boyhood trance to 
meet the vast life outside of it, as it circulates in 
human hearts, or in the common responsive heart 
of nature. 

Communion with nature is apt to lose its fresh- 
ness with the advance of life. There are few in 
whom it preserves the vivid educative fervor with 
which it moved them in youth or early manhood. ■ 
Unless fed by constant culture from other sources, 
it is especially likely to fail and exhaust itself. 
There may be those so imperfect in endowment as 
never to realize the educative influences which it so 
richly provides. But with others it continues a 
never-failing and fresh source of intellectual quick- 
ening. As they turn ever anew to it, they read new 
meanings in it — they find a new impulse in its con- 
templation; its sweet influences bind into unity or 

8* 



178 BEGINNING LIFE. 

flush, with light the knowledge they have been pain- 
fully gathering from other quarters. The young, if 
they know their own happiness, will carefully cher- 
ish this love of nature, not as a mere pastime, nor 
as a mere sensuous delight, but as a constant source 
of intellectual life and illumination. Let them go 
forth into its open face with the problems that tor- 
ment them, with the books that puzzle them, with 
the thoughts that are often a weariness and distrac- 
tion; and it is wonderful what a quiet radiance will 
often steal into their hearts — how burdens will be 
lifted up, and the vision of a comprehensive faith 
dawn upon them in glimpses, if not in perfect out- 
line. 

But more directly still than life or nature must 
books be the means of the self-culture demanded of 
the young. Or rather, these must cooperate to 
make the culture of the former wdiat it should be. 
Life, save in rare cases, will cease to be a living 
school, and nature also ; both will fail to furnish 
fresh intellectual experience, where the mind is not 
fed by study in the common and more limited sense 
of the word. The love of books — the love of read- 
ing — therefore, is the most requisite, the most effi- 
cient instrument of self-education. "Where this is 
not found in young or in old, all intellectual life 
soon dies out — rather, it may be said never to have 
been quickened. This is the distinction, as much as 
any thing, between a mere sensuous life, whose only 
care is what it shall eat and what it shall drink, and 



HOW TO BEAD. 179 

wherewithal it shall be clothed, and an intelligent 
life which looks "before and after." 

A literary taste, apart from its higher uses, is 
among the most pure and. enduring of earthly en- 
joyments. It brings its possessor into ever-renew- 
ing communion with all that is highest and best in 
the thought and sentiment of the past. The gar- 
nered wisdom of the ages is its daily food. What- 
ever is dignified and lofty in speculation; or refined 
or elevated in feeling, or wise, quaint, or humorous 
in suggestion, or soaring or tender in imagination, is 
accessible to the lover of books. He can command 
the wittiest or the wisest of companions at his pleas- 
ure. He can retire and hold converse with philoso- 
phers, statesmen, and poets; he can regale himself 
with their richest and deepest thoughts, with their 
most exquisite felicities of expression. His favorite 
books are a world to him. He lives with their char- 
acters; he is animated by their sentiments; he is 
moved by their principles. And when the outer 
world is a burden to him— when its ambitions fret 
him, or its cares worry him — he finds refuge in this 
calmer world of the past, and soothes his resent- 
ment and stimulates his languor in peaceful sympa- 
thy with it. 

Especially does this love of literature rise into 
enjoyment, when other and more active enjoyments 
begin to fade away. "When the senses lose their 
freshness, and the limbs their activity, the man who 
has learned to love books has a constant and ever- 



180 BEGINNING LIFE. 

growing interest. "When the summit of professional 
life has been attained, and wealth secured, and the 
excitements of business yield to the desire for retire- 
ment, such a man has a happy resource in himself; 
and the taste which he cultivated at intervals, and 
sometimes almost by stealth, amid the pressure of 
business avocations, becomes to him at once an or- 
nament and a blessing. It is impossible to overrate 
the comparative dignity, as well as enjoyment, of a 
life thus well spent, which has preserved an intellec- 
tual feeling amid commercial ventures or sordid 
distractions, and brightens at last into an evening of 
intellectual wisdom and calm. 

It becomes a matter of great importance, there- 
fore, to young men, how best to cultivate this intel- 
lectual taste or love for literature. How shall they 
best order their studies? Heading, with occasional 
lectures must be the great instrument of all sponta- 
neous education. How shall they read to the best 
advantage? 

It must be obvious at once that mere desultory 
reading cannot be the best thing. "Whether it be 
liable to all the objections that have been urged 
against it, we need not inquire. Probably it is not. 
There have been those who have found in desul- 
tory reading a mental stimulus, which has not only 
proved a high culture for themselves, but has car- 
ried them to heights of intellectual fame. Sir Wal- 
ter Scott is a notable example. He indulged, when 
a youth, in the most indiscriminate and desultory 



HOW TO BEAD. 181 

course of reading. Whatever came to hand in the 
shape of tale, romance, history, poetry, he devoured 
with a large and unregulated appetite. But noth- 
ing can be made of such rare instances for general 
guidance. An intellect of such capacity as Scott's 
was, in a measure, independent of common disci- 
pline. The strength of the craving itself may be 
truly said, in his case, to have more than " com- 
pensated the absence of any outward rule. It fas- 
tened instinctively on that which was suited to its 
tastes. It converted every thing it touched into the 
nourishment it required. Nothing was wasted, all' 
was digested and assimilated, and passed into the 
life-blood of his intellectual system." But what was 
the appropriate aliment of such an intellect as Scott's 
might prove the hurt and even the poison of a com- 
mon mind. Assuredly, it can no more be the best 
thing to read in a desultory manner, tl\an to do any 
thing else in a desultory manner. No more than 
our industnal life could prosper if we merely did 
what came to hand, can our intellectual life prosper 
if we merely read what comes to hand. The. very 
idea of intellectual discipline implies the application 
of some rule to our studies. 

But if the absence of rule be absurd and hurtful, 
it is not less so— often it is more so — -to endeavor to 
order our reading by too strict and formal a rule. 
It is to be feared many young men make shipwreck 
of their plans by too ambitious aims in this direc- 
tion. For it is a great mistake to suppose that the 



182 BEGINNING LIFE. 

young, and young men in particular, have a natural 
aversion to rules. Boys perhaps have. But there 
is a time of life when a young man begins to be 
thoughtful, and to project schemes for his self-im- 
provement, when he is really in more danger of 
yielding to an over-formality in his studies than any 
thing else. And this danger has been probably in- 
creased by the influence of " Young Men's Associa- 
tions," and the other institutions by which society 
seeks to help and promote this t laudable impulse. 
The field of intellectual labor is mapped out by the 
young man, and he gives so much time to this de- 
partment, and so much time to another department. 
He thinks it necessary to read certain books, and to 
make digests of them, although, after all, he feels 
very little interest in their contents, and is conscious 
that he gets but little intellectual benefit from them. 
He sets a scheme of study before him, and he labors 
at it with an undeviating regularity and devotion 
which, many years after, he will lootf back upon 
with incredulous amazement. 

Now there is something noble, beyond doubt, in 
such conduct. There is a seed of self-discipline in 
it which may bear fruit many days after, even if the 
scheme of self-imposed study should break down 
and fail of its ends. But it is a serious misfortune — 
it may prove a ruinous result — that it should break 
down, as such a scheme almost certainly will. In 
its nature it cannot last. It will fall to pieces of its ' 
own weight. For beyond a certain age, the intel- 



HOW TO BEAD. 183 

lectual activities cannot be drilled after this manner. 
They will not work by mere rule. Especially they 
become impatient of overdone and exaggerated rules. 
Everybody who has tried it, I think, will confess that 
there is nothing so hard as to carry on mere routine 
studies beyond the age of early manhood. The will 
shifts off the irksomeness of the duty in every pos- 
sible manner. Keener intellectual interests are con- 
stantly supplanting those which lie to order before us. 
And the result sooner or later always is, that it is the 
study which really interests us that carries the day. 
All others fall aside, and are taken up at always wider 
intervals, till they drop out of sight altogether. 

The truth is, that the man cannot work after the 
same methods as the boy. Spontaneous education 
cannot proceed on the same principles and rules as 
scholastic education. The latter has its chief sup- 
port in external rules. It is under authority. But 
the former must be sustained by a constant outflow 
of the internal sympathy in which it takes its rise. 
A man will only continue to study that in which he 
feels a real interest and pleasure constantly prompt- 
ing him to mental activity. It will not be the books 
that others may suppose to be the right thing for 
him, but the books that he likes, the books that 
have an affinity with his intellectual predilection?, 
that he will read, and that will truly profit him.* 

* "No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en ; 
In brief, sir, study what you most affect" — 

is the compendious advice of our great dramatic poet. 



184 BEGINNING LIFE. 

So far, therefore, it may be concluded, in answer 
to the question, How a young man shall read to the 
best advantage — that he should select some partic- 
ular department of knowledge which he feels inter- 
esting, and that within this department he should 
read carefully and studiously. If he only once make 
this selection, and make it rightly, other things will 
adjust themselves. He will not need very definite 
rules, nor will he need to concern himself about 
strict conformity with what rules he may have. 
The varied and desultory reading in which he may 
indulge will adapt itself in various w T ays to the main 
intellectual interest of his life. It w T ill appropriate 
to its purpose the most stray information, while 
again the vivid central fire of his intellectual being 
will cast a light and meaning often around the most 
desultory particulars. 

It may not seem easy to make such a choice ; but 
every one more or less unconsciously makes it. The 
important matter is, to recognize it to yourselves, 
and to build up your intellectual education upon it ; 
because it can be really built up in no other manner. 
It is only by studying some particular subject with 
a view to mastering it, or some parts of it, that you 
can ever acquire a really studious insight and power. 
Nothing will enable you to realize your mental gifts, 
and to feel yourselves in the free and useful posses- 
sion of them, like the triumph of bringing within 
your power and making your ow r n some special sub- 
ject, so that you can look from the height of a sur- 



HOW TO BEAD. 185 

i 
mounted difficulty, and advance from the fulness of 

a successful faculty. 

The advantage of such a central subject of intel- 
lectual interest is not only that it gives a unity to all 
your other reading, but that it preserves the idea of 
study — of study and patient work in your mind. 
This is the best cure for desultory and self-indul- 
gent literary habits. Tou feel that you have got 
something to do — that you are making progress in 
a definite direction — that you are rising to a clearer 
height of mental illumination over some pathway 
that you desire to explore. This is not only pleas- 
ant, but it costs you pains; and it is all the more 
pleasant, certainly all the more improving, that it 
does cost pains. For this is a condition of all gen- 
uine education, that it call forth a deliberate, anx- 
ious, and persistent mental action. It may not be 
a great subject that engages your interest, but it is 
not necessary that it should be so in order that you 
may gain great advantages from a studious atten- 
tion to it; for here, as in many cases, the "chase is 
better than the game." The power of mental dis- 
cernment, the capacity of inductive inference, of sift- 
ing confused facts or statements, and penetrating to 
the life of truth beneath them, are the highest gifts 
to be got. Definite results of knowledge are com- 
paratively unimportant; for such gifts are, so to 
speak, the sinew r s of all knowledge. And when once 
you have mastered, or done w T hat you can by stren- 
uous energy to master, any one thing, you are pre- 



186 BEGINNING LIFE. 

pared to enter on a wide increase of intellectual pos- 
sessions. To plant your foot on any single spot of 
knowledge, and make it your own by reading about 
it — by studying it in the light of whatever helps you 
can command — is to brace your mental vigor, and 
to secure it a free and powerful play in whatever 
direction it may be turned. 

Study, accordingly, should be definite. It is only 
some aim in view that can give to your intellectual 
employment the character of study. Reading should 
neither be desultory nor routine, but select. It is 
only some principle of selection that can impart con- 
tinuity and life to your thoughts. What this prin- 
ciple of selection should be in each case it is impos- 
sible to determine. Every one must be the best 
judge for himself in such a matter. And if he do 
not force nature, or give it too much license, he will 
have little difficulty in finding what lies closest to 
his interest. To every young man we commend the 
wise and weighty words of Bacon in his famous 
Essay on Studies. There is a piquancy and rich- 
ness of exaggeration in them, here and there, that 
leave them above any mere imitation, but that serve 
to impress them all the more vividly upon the mind. 

"Studies," he says, "serve for delight, for. orna- 
ment, and ability. Their chief use for delight is in 
privateness and retiring ; for ornament, is in dis- 
course ; and for ability, is in the judgment and dis- 
position of business .... They perfect nature, and 
are perfected by experience ; for natural abilities are 



HOW TO BEAD. 187 

like natural plants that need pruning by study ; and 
studies themselves do give forth directions too much 
at large, except they be bounded in by experience. 
Crafty men contemn studies ; simple men admire 
them ; and wise men use them ; for they teach not 
their own use ; but that is a wisdom without them 
and above them, won by observation. Eead not to 
contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for 
granted ; nor to find talk and discourse ; but to weigh 
and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others 
to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and 
digested ; that is, some books are to be read only in 
parts; others to be read, but cursorily; and some 
few to be read wholly, and with diligence and atten- 
tion. Some books also may be read by deputy, and 
extracts made of them by others; but that would 
be only m the less important arguments, and the 
meaner sort of books ; also distilled books are like 
common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading 
maketh a full man ; conference a ready man ; and 
writing an exact man. And, therefore, if a man 
write little, he had need have a great memory ; if 
he confer little, he had heed have a present wit; 
and if he read little, he had need have much cun- 
ning to seem to have that he doth not. Histories 
make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, 
subtile ; natural philosophy, deep ; morals, grave ; 
logic and rhetoric, able to contend ; 'Abeunt studia 
in mores' Nay, there is no stond or impediment in 
the wit but may be wrought out by fit studies ; like 



188 BEGINNING LIFE. 

as diseases of the body may have appropriate exer- 
cises ; bowling is good for the stone and reins ; shoot- 
ing for the lungs and breast ; gentle walking for the 
stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if 
a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathe- 
matics; for, in demonstrations, if his wit be called 
away never so little, he must begin again ; if his wit 
be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him 
study the schoolmen ; if he be not apt to beat over 
matters, and to call up one thing to prove or illus- 
trate another, let him study the lawyer cases; so 
every defect of the mind may have a special receipt." 





Books — What to Read. 

^OME books are to be tasted, others to be 
swallowed, and some few to be chewed 
and digested.'' If this was true in Lord 
Bacon's time, how much more so is it in a 
time like ours, when books have multiplied 
beyond all precedent in the world's history ! It has 
become, in fact, a task beyond the power of any 
man to keep up, as it is said, with the rapidly accu- 
mulating productions of literature in all its branches. 
To enter a vast library, or even one of compara- 
tively modest dimensions, such as all our large 
towns may boast,, and survey the closely packed 
shelves — the octavos rising above quartos, and duo- 
decimos above both — is apt to fill the mind with a 
sense of oppression at the mere physical impossi- 
bility of ever coming in contact with such multi- 
plied sources of knowledge. The old thought, Ars 
longa, vita brevis, comes home with a sort of sigh to 
the mind. Many lives would be wasted in the vain 
attempt. The inspection of a large library cer- 
tainly cannot be recommended to inspire literary 
ambition. The names that shine in the horizon of 



190 BEGINNING LIFE. 

fame are but specks amid the innumerable unknown 
that look down from the same eminence of repose. 

Yet this thought of incapacity — and of the van- 
ity as w^ell as the glory of literature — in the contem- 
plation of a large library, is rather the thought of 
the ideal scholar than of common-sense. The lat- 
ter sees in a great collection of books the simple and 
efficient means of diffusing intellectual life through 
innumerable channels; and literary and political 
history, too, is pregnant with, examples of the bene- 
fits which have sprung from mere vicinity to a well- 
stored library. It is not merely that genius has 
been excited, and the aspiration for fame kindled in 
some hearts where it might have otherwise lain tor- 
pid ; but it is that hundreds have owned a happier 
intellectual, and also a happier moral stimulus from 
such an advantage. Lord Macaulay has spoken of 
what he himself knew in this respect, and especially 
of an " eminent soldier and distinguished diploma- 
tist ^ho has enjoyed the confidence of the first gen- 
erals and statesmen which Europe has produced in 
our clay," and who confessed that his success in life 
was mainly owing to his advantageous position 
when a young man in the vicinity of a library. 
" When I asked to what he owed his accomplish- 
ments and success, he said to me, ' When I served 
when a young man in India — when it was the turn- 
ing-point in my life — when it was a mere chance 
whether I should become a mere card-playing, hoo- 
ka-smoking lounger — I was fortunately quartered 



WHAT TO RfiAD. 191 

for two years in the neighborhood of an excellent 
library which was made accessible to rae.' ' 

The influence of books at a certain stage of life 
is more than can be well estimated. The principles 
which they inculcate, the lessons which they exhibit, 
the ideals of life and character which they portray, 
root themselves in the thoughts and imaginations of 
young men. They seize them with a force which to 
after years appears scarcely possible. And when 
their faculties in mere restlessness might consume 
themselves in riotous frivolity and self-indulgence, 
they often receive in communion with some true and 
earnest book a right impulse, which turns them to 
safety, happiness, and honor. 

The task of selection perhaps might be fairly 
left to individual taste and judgment. Every mind 
has an eclectic quality which inclines to its own 
proper mental food, and the choice of books must in 
the end mainly depend upon this. It may be very 
doubtful whether the choice is likely to be accord- 
ing to the exalted advice of Bacon, so that "every 
defect of the mind may have a special receipt." 
This is too reflective a standard. It is only applica- 
ble, after all, within certain limits. To try to nour- 
ish the mind on what would be mainly medicine to 
it, would be no more possible than to nourish the 
body after a similar manner. A healthy appetite 
for what is fitting and congenial must be the main 
guide and unconsciously selective instrument of 
nutriment in both cases. 



192 BEGINNING LIFE. 

Undoubtedly this appetite is feeble, and in many 
cases perverted. Nature, it may be said, does not 
set the same safeguard around it in the mental as 
in the physical world. The stomach rejects un- 
wholesome food, but the minds of the young often 
feed on garbage, and even poison. There is some 
truth in this, but also some exaggeration. A healthy 
intellect which goes in search of its own intellectual 
food must be the basis of all spontaneous education. 
The cases in which this interest becomes a pervert- 
ed craving are not so much cases for advice as for 
definite curative treatment of some kind. Our chief 
aim must be to offer some remarks which may serve 
to guide the healthy faculty for knowledge. These 
remarks may be in the shape of warning as well as 
advice ; but the desire after self -improvement must 
be assumed in all who are likely to derive any ben- 
efit from them. 

While books have multiplied ip such numbers, it 
may be truly said that good books are by no means 
oppressively numerous. They have not grown cer- 
tainly in proportion to the general increase of liter- 
ary productions. And there are those who delight 
to reckon up how few really first-rate authors they 
would be pleased to take with them into studious 
and contented retirement. Shall we say that the 
young man should select a few such authors, and 
confine himself to their diligent and recurring study? 
How admirably would they mould his principles and 
refine his t&ste, and inspire and chasten his whole 



WHAT TO READ. 193 

intellectual life ! But this is really what the young 
man will never do, or almost never. Such schemes 
of studious devotion to a few great authors are 
rather the dreams of elder ease and an over-curious 
culture, than ideas that ever enter into the heads of 
the young. They remain dreams for the most part 
even with those who delight to court them. In 
conformity w^ith their source, moreover, they are 
generaUy confined to authors of an older time, when 
thought seemed riper and wit brighter, and poetry 
flushed with a richer imagination than in these last 
times. The intellectual Epicurean who would feed 
only on a few choice authors is generally also the 
laudator temporis acti — the indiscriminate eulogist 
of the past — and this of itself is enough to place 
his recipes for intellectual improvement beyond the 
sympathy or imitation of the young. For if there 
is one la^ more sure than another in mental devel- 
opment, it is that the young must take their start 
in thought and in taste from the models of their 
own time — the men whose fame has not yet become 
a tradition, but is ringing in clear and loud notes in 
the social atmosphere around us. 

Such very ideal schemes of study, therefore, will 
not do for young men. They will read the authors 
of their own time, and find their chief interest in 
these authors. It requires a culture which as yet 
they are only in search of to find equal or even a 
higher interest in older forms of literature, and in 
the great masterpieces of the past. 

BegiBoiwg Lif* 9 



194 BEGINNING LIFE. 

Books may be classified conveniently enough for 
our purpose in four divisions : 

1. Philosophical and Theological. 

2. Historical. 

3. Scientific. 

4. Books oe Poetry and Fiction. 

The bare enumeration suggests visions impossi- 
ble of attainment. Even with such general divisions 
of the field of study before him, every young man 
must feel how far it exceeds his compass. He must 
choose, if he would do any good, some definite por- 
tion of the field ; and even confine himself mainly to 
some share of this, if he would turn his reading into 
an instrument of real education. The utmost we 
can hope to do is to indicate for his guidance some 
of the most characteristic features of these divisions, 
and some of the books in each that claim the atten- 
tion of all that would be students in it. 

1. The first of these divisions may seem less in 
the way of young men seeking a general culture 
rather than a definite intellectual discipline. But, 
as we have already explained, it is only through 
some special study that any intellectual mastery can 
be gained ; and we commonly find that books in 
philosophy and theology are at once among the 
most attractive and the most effective sources of 
such study. The young man in the full flush of his 
opening powers is naturally drawn to the examina- 
tion and discussion of the highest problems that 
concern his being and happiness. There is a san- 



WHAT TO READ. 195 

guine daring of speculation in the fresh and inexpe- 
rienced mind which dashes at questions before which 
the veteran philosopher, warned by many defeats, 
sadly recoils. It may be often very useless in its 
results this youthful speculation, but if not alto- 
gether misdirected, it may prove the most precious 
training. The mind rises, from its very defeats in 
such service, more vigorous and more elastic. 

The philosophical literature of England is, if 
not the most erudite and lofty, the richest, the most 
varied, and — not excepting that of France — the 
most intelligible philosophical literature of the 
world. It has the great virtue of keeping close to 
life and fact. And so there are few even of its 
masterpieces which may not be read and under- 
stood by the general reader. The great w r ork of 
Locke on the "Human Understanding" may be 
said to be typical of it in this respect. No doubt 
there are schools of philosophy among ourselves, as 
well as in Germany, that profess to look down upon 
such empirical philosophy as that of Locke ; but we 
do not now enter into any such questions. The 
more spiritual philosophy may have the advantage ; 
for ourselves w r e think that it has ; but there is nev- 
ertheless something peculiarly British in the manly 
and straightforward simplicities of Locke's mind, 
and the intelligible, unpretentious character of his 
philosophy. Every young man who has a love for 
speculation ought to study his w r orks. He should 
try to master the great work we have just men- 



196 BEGINNING LIFE. 

tioned. At any rate, he should master his small 
work on the " Conduct of the Understanding;" and 
to make even this little treatise his own thoroughly, 
he will find a most bracing and wholesome mental 
exercise. 

The writings of Dr. Reid, the great master, if not 
the father of the Scottish philosophy, partake of the 
same vigorous and homely qualities as those of 
Locke, if of inferior range and grasp. The student 
will have recourse at least to the early work of this 
philosopher — " An Inquiry into the Human Mind " — 
as marking an important epoch in British thought, 
and as characterized by some of its most significant 
and instructive features. If he is really a student 
of philosophy, he wdll not be content with this, but 
he will delight to' trace the developments of the 
Scottish school of thought, from its beginnings in 
Hutcheson's " System of Moral % Philosophy," on 
through the writings of Beid, of Smith, of Stewart, 
of Brown, and of Hamilton. The great work of 
Smith, on the "Moral Sentiments," would of itself 
prove a most valuable discipline to any young phi- 
losopher. 

These are merely hints ; of course they can be 
nothing more. There are other names equally if 
not more important. There is the great name of 
Coleridge, who, from his deeper speculative sympa- 
thies, and richer culture, is more likely than any we 
have mentioned to draw the admiration of young 
students. They could not come in contact with a 



WHAT TO BEAD. 197 

higher and more stimulating mind in many respects. 
The "Aids to Beflection" has been to thoughtful 
young men for two generations, perhaps, more of a 
hand-book of speculation than any other book in 
the language, and much high-minded and noble 
seriousness has sprung from its study. It would 
be difficult to say that, taking' all things into con- 
sideration, any book of the kind has higher claims 
upon the attention of the young. The great matter 
to bear in mind is, that variety of acquaintance w r ith 
philosophical literature ought not so much to be the 
object as familiar acquaintance with and mastery of 
some particular w r ork. The former is the part of 
the professed philosopher — the latter is the prop- 
er part of the student, to which the other may be 
added — should opportunity permit. 

The same thing* is especially true in regard to 
theological books*. A knowledge of theological lit- 
erature is the business of the professed theologian. 
It can only be possible to others in rare circum- 
stances. But every thinking man should know 
something of theology, and there are young minds 
that will by an irresistible impulse seek their main 
intellectual discipline in the reading of theological 
authors. To such minds a few great books in our 
English theological literature would be the appro- 
priate aliment. But who* shall venture to point out 
these? If the task is difficult in other departments, 
it becomes in this almost hopelessly embarrassed. 

Men fight for sides in theology as they fight for 



298 BEGINNING LIFE. 

nothing else. The polemics of philosophy are some- 
times keen, but the polemics of theology tear society 
asunder. They are felt to involve matters of life 
and death ; and every passion that makes life dear, 
and every interest that makes death an anxiety, 
combine to intensify the struggle between rival the- 
ological systems. Peaceful and meditative spirits 
may sigh over this state of things, but probably it 
will last as long as the world lasts, and men are but 
dim searchers for truth amid the shadows of earthly 
existence. 

It arises from this state of things that young men 
have less freedom and openness of view in theology 
than in almost any other department of knowledge. 
They belong, so to speak, to a side which guards 
them jealously, and will let them see only one class 
of books. They are often taught to think that there 
is nothing good or excellent beyond these. This is 
an unhappy attempt — unhappy whether it succeeds 
or whether it fails. For, in one case, a narrow sec- 
tarianism, which does not so much care for truth as 
for party, is likely to be the result. And, in the 
other case, the mind is likely, when it finds that a 
game has been playing with it, and that there are 
interesting tracks of theological inquiry of which 
it has been kept ignorant, to take a rebound to an 
opposite extreme, and run to wildness. 

It is better, however difficult it may be, to try to 
direct a spirit of inquiry in the young. To reject 
authority in this, any more than in any other de- 



WHAT TO BEAD. 299 

partment of knowledge, is a simple absurdity. From 
the very nature of the inquiry, authority must be 
here especially valuable. Tet at the same time to 
abandon freedom, is to abdicate one's right of rea- 
son and of conscience, from which no good can ever 
come. 

But who is to assume the office of director? In 
reference to our existing theological literature it may 
be safely said, that it would not be wise for any one 
to assume this function save in a most general 
manner. To adjudicate between different schools 
of theological opinion, some of which are only in 
progress of development, all of which have living 
representatives, would be an invidious and ungrate- 
ful task. If there are any minds can -get satisfaction 
from the clever analysis that may be made of some 
of these schools with a view to warning off the 
young from them, the writer's mind is not of this 
class. The unhappy thing is, that such warnings 
are more apt to point forward than backward, and 
this not through any moral perversity in the young, 
but from the mere insatiable desire of knowledge. 
There is a love in all hearts, and in the young theo- 
logical heart more than all others, for the dangerous. 
If any book is labelled dangerous, tnere is a rush of 
curiosity toward it which no remonstrances can deter. 
Then there is this special difficulty. One con- 
stantly feels that he may be more in affinity with 
the spirit of an author whose views he might hesi- 
tate to recommend to the young, than with many 



200 BEGINNING LIFE. 

authors whose views are of a more orthodox char- 
acter. Who has not felt, for example, the charm of 
Robertson of Brighton's sermons, which have circu- 
lated so much among the young in our day? There 
is a life in these sermons which sermons but rarely 
have — an energy of fresh, and genial, and loving 
earnestness which move the heart and search the 
springs of all religious feeling in the inquiring and 
thoughtful. Yet there are here and there rash and 
exaggerated utterances in them. One must take 
the evil with the good. And surely he would be a 
prejudiced father who would not rejoice to see his 
son moved by such sermons, his soul awakened, and 
life made more earnest to him, because they may 
contain some views of doctrine from which he may 
wish to guard his son. The wise parent would ac- 
cept the good and try to avert the evil. He would 
do this by quiet and reasonable counsel, and not by 
mere dogmatism or angry argument. 

Passing from our current or recent theological 
literature, there are three great w r riters, each mark- 
ing a century, w r e may say, of our past English the- 
ology, tfiat may be very confidently recommended 
to the study of young men. These writers are But- 
ler, Leighton, and Hooker — Butler, a master of the- 
ological argument, strong in logic, calm in spirit, 
comprehensive- in aim — Leighton, like Pascal, a 
genius in religious meditation, deep, reflective, yet 
quick, sensitive, and tender — the beau-ideal of a 
Christian muser ; never losing hold of the most 



WHAT TO BEAD. 201 

practical duties in the most ethereal flights of his 
quaint and holy imagination — Hooker, a thinker of 
transcending compass, sweeping in the range of his 
imperial mind the whole circumference of Christian 
speculation — rising with the wings of boldness to 
the heights of the divine government, and yet fold- 
ing them with the sweetest reverence before the 
throne. 

There are many other great names in English 
theological literature, but there are none greater 
than these. There are none upon the whole that 
will form so admirable a discipline for the young. 
Some may prefer the passionate and majestic pages 
of Jeremy Taylor — the quaint spiritualizing felici- * 
ties of Hall — the didactic stately arguments of Pear- 
son — the fervid and pleading pathos of Baxter; but 
these, and many other writers, are more professional, 
so to speak, in their interest. They do not com- 
mand such wide sympathies as the others do. They 
are less likely to attract, therefore, and less likely to 
influence the minds of the young. 

Before passing from this class of books, it may 
be proper to say a special word or two as to the 
necessity of studying the Book of books — the Bible. 
A feeling of reverence almost prevents us from men- 
tioning it in connection with other books, as if it 
merely claimed its share of attention along with 
them. It is implied, on the contrary, in the whole 
conception of these chapters, that its study must lie 
at the foundation of all education. Every aspect of 

9* 



202 BEGINNING LIFE. 

life and duty lias been viewed by us in the light of 
Divine Revelation, of which the Bible is the record. 
•And clearly, therefore, its reading must occupy a 
quite peculiar place. It is demanded of us in a 
sense in which the reading of no other book is de- 
manded. They may or may not be read, but the 
Bible must be read by us as Christians. We neg- 
lect a plain and bounden duty, and virtually dis- 
claim the Christian character, if we neglect to 
read it. 

Do young men sufficiently realize, even those of 
them who are thoughtful and well-intentioned, this 
necessity of reading the Scriptures? They read 
them, we shall suppose, at church, and elsewhere — 
on Sunday, and other times too; but are they at 
pains to understand what they read? Do they 
make the Scriptures a study? We fear that by 
young as by old the Bible is often read in a very 
imperfect and unintelligent manner. Not even the 
same trouble and inquiry are given to it as to other 
books. And yet, more than any book for general 
perusal, it may be said to need such trouble and 
inquiry. It is marvellously adapted, indeed, to the 
unlearned as. well as the learned. "He that run- 
neth" may "read, mark, and inwardly digest" its 
simple truths ; but it also rewards and calls for the 
most patient, earnest, and critical devotion of mind. 
Its pages are fitted for the capacity of a child, yet 
they show depths which the highest intellect cannot 
fathom. They contain "line upon line, here a little 



WHAT TO READ. 203 

and there a little," for every docile, however untu- 
tored Christian; yet they also claim, in order to be 
adequately known, the most devoted power of appli- 
cation and reflection. 

Every young man, therefore, should give his 
earnest attention ±o the reading of Scripture. Let 
him not suppose that he- can easily know all that it 
contains. Let him not be contented to read a chap- 
ter now and then, rather as a duty than as a living 
interest and education. No reading should be so 
interesting to him ; none, certainly i can form to him 
so high an education. It is not only his Christian 
intelligence and sensibility that will be everywhere 
drawn forth in the perusal of its blessed pages, but 
his taste, his imagination, and reason will be exer- 
cised and regaled in the highest degree. Its poetry 
is, beyond all other poetry, incomparable, not only 
in the heights of its divine arguments, as Milton sug- 
gests, but in "the very critical art of composition." 
Its narratives are* models of simplicity and graphic 
life. It abounds in almost every species of literary 
excellence and intellectual sublimity. It is above 
all, the inspired Word of God — the source of all 
spiritual truth and illumination. Whatever you 
read, therefore, do not forget to read the Bible. Let 
it be as the "man of your counsel, and the guide of 
your right hand," and as a "light to your feet." 
"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the 
soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making 
wise the simple ; the statutes of the Lord are right, 



204 BEGINNING LIFE. 

rejoicing the heart ; the commandment of the Lord 
is pure, enlightening the eyes." "Wherewithal shall 
a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed 
thereto according to thy Word." 

2. If we proceed now to historical books, the 
task of selection becomes a less difficult one. Nev- 
er, certainly, was an age richer in great historical 
works than our own. And not only so, but, what is 
more important still, the spirit of a higher histori- 
cal method has penetrated many departments of 
inquiry, and is working out great results. It is the 
essence of this spirit to search reputed facts to the 
bottom — to explore beneath the accumulations of 
tradition and the glosses either of glory or of scan- 
dal with which great characters have been overlaid ; 
and although it may have in some instances run riot 
in mere opposition to popular and long-standing 
prejudices, beyond doubt it has cleared up many of 
the outlines of the past, and made it nearer and 
more real to us than it had ever been before. Older 
histories, notwithstanding the fascination of their 
style and the epic proportions of their details — 
rounded rather to suit imaginary preconceptions of 
the subject than its actual exigencies — have been 
superseded, and new ones have taken their place. 
Hume, always charming by his graceful and flowing 
narrative, is no longer an authority. He was not 
even a very trustworthy reporter of what he read ; 
and others have read far more deeply than he ever 
did, and turned up facts of which he was wholly. 



WHAT TO BEAD. 2D 5 

ignorant. The schoolboy fancy of many still living 
lingers with a fond and pleasing regret around the 
pages of Goldsmith's "History of Borne," and his 
graphic portraitures of Roman character ; but Ro- 
man history has been revolutionized in its very con- 
ception since Goldsmith's days. 

The spirit of this new historical method is of 
great importance to the young. It lies near to the 
root of all genuine education. The mind acquires 
from it the capacity of looking for the truth — of 
sifting the essential from the accidental — the living 
from the conventional — and piercing below the in- 
crusted dogma of popular narrative or description 
to the direct face of facts. It learns an instinct of 
fairness — a tact of discernment not easily seduced 
by arts of rhetoric or by any cleverness of special 
pleading. And there is no gain of education greater 
and none more rare than this power of critical and 
independent judgment, which cares for what is right 
and true in the face of all partisanship and lies. 

Of the many great historical works which our 
age has produced, there are some so popular and 
universally read that it is needless to recommend 
them. Macaulay's wonderful volumes, as they suc- 
cessively appeared, carried captive the minds of old 
and young. The magic flow of his periods — the 
brilliant and dashing colors of his portraits — his 
illuminating comprehension of his subject, and the 
flush of radiance which he poured on certain parts 
of it — his rich political wisdom and magnanimous 



206 BEGINNING LIFE. 

spirit of patriotism — all served to give to his "His- 
tory of England" an attraction which has been sel- 
dom paralleled, and which only a very rare genius 
could have wielded and sustained. While the young- 
read such a history with delighted enthusiasm, they 
should remember that they must return to it and 
ponder it well before they can really get from it the 
mental strengthening and elevation it is fitted to 
afford. 

The works of Hallam, of Thirwall and Grote, of 
Milman and Prescott, of Froude and of Motley, 
show in their mere enumeration what a field lies 
before the student here. The careful study of any 
one of these histories is an education in itself ; and 
there is no mental task could be recommended as 
more # appropriate and more valuable to the young 
man. Take Dean Milman' s " History of Latin Chris- 
tianity," for example, as covering the widest field of 
facts. What a quickening, bracing, and informing 
study would such a book make — all the* more per- 
haps that it cannot be read like Macaulay's volumes, 
under the continued pressure of a high-wrought 
interest ! In some respects, indeed, it is very hard 
and painful reading, in the old sense of the latter 
word. It costs pain^ ; it strains the faculty of atten- 
tion; it tasks and wearies the memory. All great 
histories, even Macaulay's, more or less do this. To 
read them as a whole is never*an easy matter; and 
it will be found, in point of fact, they are but rarely 
read and studied so completely as they ought to be 



WHAT TO READ. 207 

The young man cannot brace himself to any higher 
effort, or one more likely to tell upon his whole in- 
tellectual life. The study of such works as we have 
mentioned, or of many others that might be men- 
tioned — Clarendon's graphic pages — Gibbon's mag- 
nificent drama — may serve to date an epoch in his 
educational development. Many can recall how the 
perusal of such a masterpiece as Gibbon's "Decline 
and Fall of the Roman Empire" served to raise the 
conception of what the human mind could do, and 
left an indelible impress on the intellectual char- 
acter. 

In studying such works the aim should be to 
master them, and if possible their subject, so thor- 
oughly as to be able to exercise a free judgment as 
to what you read. To read merely that you may 
repeat the views of the historian, or perhaps imbibe 
his prejudices, is a poor and even an injurious result. 
You must read rather that you may understand his 
subject ; and if he is really a great historian, he will 
enable you to do this to some extent independently 
of his own representations. Using his pages, you 
must yet look through them, and endeavor to real- 
ize the course of facts for yourself. Especially aim, 
by an active sympathy and intelligent perception of 
what is going on around you — of the history that is 
being daily wrought out under your eyes and in 
your own experience — to get some living apprehen- 
sion of the past, some real understanding of its 
great events and characters, its social manners, its 



203 BEGINNING LIFE. 

laws, institutions, and modes of government, the 
condition of the people in their different ranks and 
relations, the interior of their family life, their diet, 
their industry, and their amusements. It is but 
recently that historians have recognized the neces- 
sity of treating some of these topics, but it is becom- 
ing more and more evident that it is such topics, and 
not the mere details of battles or of royal doings, 
that form the real staple of history. "Whatever con- 
tributes to unveil the past, to make it an intelligible 
reality and not a mere shadowy picture, is the right 
material of history; and its highest use is to give 
such an insight into the past as may happily guide 
and influence the future. 

According to the old definition, " history is phi- 
losophy teaching by examples;" and the constant 
instruction which it presents to the student is cer- 
tainly among its greatest advantages. "While call- 
ing into strenuous exercise so many faculties of the 
understanding — attention, memory, comprehen- 
sion — and filling the imagination with its grand out- 
lines, it ministers no less to the moral reason and 
judgment. It is everywhere a drama of moral retri- 
bution. And so it is that something of the same 
lofty feeling — half pleasure, half awe — that comes 
from the perusal of a great tragedy comes also from 
the perusal of a great history. The realities of a 
higher Divine order, everywhere traversing the 
complications of human intrigue — the confusions of 
earthly politics — show r themselves in unmistakable 



WHAT TO READ. 209 

radiance. They come forth like the handwriting on 
the wall, stamping themselves in silent characters 
amid all the excitements of human conflict, and the 
promiscuous uproar of human passion. 

The student, therefore; if he learn any thing, 
should learn political and moral wisdom in the 
school of history. Such volumes as Macaulay's and 
Motley's must teach him how political success can 
only be effectually grounded on fairness, rectitude, 
and truth. Manoeuvre may succeed and falsehood 
triumph for awhile, but their end is shame and dis- 
comfiture. Of the many excellences of Mr. Motley's 
historical labors, one of the chief is the clearness 
with which he has seized the moral element in his- 
tory, and wrought it into the fabric of his narrative, 
not by way of dogmatic obtrusion, but simply as a 
natural part of his subject. The reader is not 
merely thrilled with a vivid story, and the lifelike 
delineations of one of the most powerful pencils 
that ever sketched human character and action, but 
he is, moreover, touched at every point by the un- 
folding lesions of a great moral # spectacle. 

3. Of scientific books it is scarcely for one to 
speak who has not given some special attention to 
the subject. Our age, however, is more rife in such 
books as may help the young in cultivating scien- 
tific inclinations than any other age has been. Of 
all departments of knowledge, indeed, that of pop- 
ular science may be said to be making the most 
advance. And the most competent judges will 



210 BEGINNING LIFE. 

allow that much real progress may be made in sci- 
entific attainment by the mere energy of attention, 
by experiment, and careful observation of phenom- 
ena, without the qualifications of the higher mathe- 
matics, which fall to the lot of but few. Certainly 
much of the intellectual discipline of scientific study 
may be got by independent efforts. Some of the 
most distinguished names in science have been self- 
taught students. 

Among the departments of knowledge, there are 
those who claim for science the very highest func- 
tion in education. And without entering into any 
polemic on the subject, there can be no doubt that 
it affords educational advantages of the noblest kind. 
It is impossible to study the great laws of nature, 
the wonderful complications of its phenomena, and 
the beautiful relations which link and harmonize 
them, without having our mental and our moral fac- 
ulties equally stimulated. The mechanism of the 
heavens, the structure of the earth and its countless 
living objects, the structure of our own bodies, the 
composition of the sir we breathe, the light whereby 
we see, the dust on which we tread are all subjects 
equally fitted to discipline and delight our minds. 
And he can scarcely claim, in any sense, to be an 
educated man, who remains entirely ignorant of such 
subjects. It is true that man long remained ignor- 
ant of them, and that the intellectual civilization of 
the ancient nations was based but in a small degree 
on any accurate knowledge of physical phenomena. 



WHAT TO READ. 211 

But this can be no excuse for modern ignorance of 
the same phenomena. It is the mark of a small and 
contracted mind to shun any department of knowl- 
edge, and one especially of such intense interest and 
importance. 

Why, indeed, should there be any conflict be- 
tween one department and another? Why should 
the advocates of classical and of "useful" knowledge 
hold high contention, and vex the educational atmo- 
sphere w r ith their din ? Both are excellent in their 
place. The former never could perish out of human 
culture without ruinous loss. The latter must ad- 
vance as the very condition of human progress. To 
some minds the former will prove the fitting disci- 
pline, to others the latter. For the classicist to abuse 
natural studies, or the physicist to abuse classical 
studies, is equally absurd. 

Assuredly the study of nature is no mere dry and 
"useful" - study. It is instinct with poetry and 
thought at every point ; and in our own day many 
writers have clothed the truths of science in the 
most elevated and attractive diction. Sir John 
Herschel, Sir David Brewster, Hugh Miller, Mr. 
Lewes, Mr. Hunt, and others have all written of sci- 
ence so as to interest any but the most indifferent 
minds. And the young student w T ho would follow 
out such studies will find in the writings of these 
well-known authors at once their plainest and their 
highest guides. Such works as those of Hugh Mil- 
ler on geology, and Mr. Lewes' "Seaside Studies," 



212 BEGINNING LIFE. 

and Professor Johnston's " Chemistry of Common 
Life," and Mr. Farraday's " Lectures for the Young," 
not to mention others, show how numerously books 
lie to his hand in this department of study ; and many 
of these books are marked by the highest quali- 
ties of thought and expression, with which no young 
mind can come in contact* without the utmost good. 

In such studies, let it be your aim not merely to 
accumulate facts, nor to store your memories with 
details, but also to grasp principles. It is from lack 
of doing this that many minds turn away in weari- 
ness from scientific pursuits. They are repelled by 
needless particulars, whose interdependence and re- 
lation they fail to perceive. Most of the writers we 
have mentioned will help the student to a higher 
point of view than this. Most of them, moreover, 
will inspire him with the poetry as well as the util- 
ity of his subject. And this is a great gain; for 
youthful study advances under a spur of poetic 
enthusiasm more than any thing else. Carry this 
enthusiasm with you into the study of nature. Learn 
to appreciate its beauties, to admire its harmonies, 
as you explore its secrets. This is surely the natu- 
ral result that should follow an increased acquaint- 
ance with scientific facts. The more nature is stud- 
ied, the more should all its poetry appear. 

As one has asked who has defended somewhat 
extravagantly, but also eloquently and forcibly, the 
value of scientific education,* "Think you that a 

© Mr. Herbert Spencer — Education, p. 45. 



WHAT TO BEAD. 213 

drop of water, which to the vulgar eye is but a drop 
of water, loses any thing in the eye of the physicist, 
who knows that its elements are held together by a 
force which, if suddenly liberated, would produce a 
flash of lightning? Think you that what is care- 
lessly looked upon by the uninitiated as a mere 
snowflake does not suggest higher associations to one 
who has seen through a microscope the wondrously 
varied and elegant forms of snow-crystals ? Think 
you that the rounded rock, marked with parallel 
scratches, calls up as much poetry in an ignorant 
mind as in the mind of a geologist, who knows that 
on this rock a glacier slid a million years ago ? The 
truth is, that those who have never entered upon 
scientific pursuits are blind to most of the poetry by 
which they are surrounded. Whoever has not in 
youth collected plants and insects knows not half 
the halo of interest which lanes and hedgerows can 
assume. Whoever has not sought for fossils has 
little idea of the poetical associations that surround 
the places where imbedded treasures were found. 
Whoever at the seaside has not had a microscope 
and aquarium has yet to learn what the highest 
pleasures of the seaside are." 

4. Books of poetry and fiction are the last class 
that we have enunciated. In many respects they 
are the most important. To some, indeed, it may 
seem that such books cannot compete in an educa- 
tional point of view with the graver compositions of 
philosophy, history, and of science, of which we 



214 BEGINNING LIFE. 

have been speaking. But this would be a narrow 
judgment. In every generation it will be found, on 
the contrary, that the works of what have been 
called belles-lettres have exercised over the young a 
wider and more stimulating influence than almost 
any others. And naturally so. For it is the spe- 
cial aim of such works to idealize all that is most 
attractive in nature or in life to the young, to paint 
in the most vivid experiences the passions, feelings, 
and aspirations that animate and please them. 

It becomes, therefore, so far as the young are 
concerned, a most important consideration of what 
quality the poetic and fictitious literature of their 
time may be. They will read it. It is needless to 
declaim against fiction-reading, or try to thwart it. 
All such attempts betray a narrow ignorance of hu- 
man nature, and above all, of youthful human nature. 
The nursery tale and the fascinated fireside that 
draws around it might teach such ignorant moralists 
a higher lesson. The truth is, that the mind of the 
child — of the boy, of the youth — craves as one of 
its most natural interests fictitious or ideal repre- 
sentations of human life and character, of events in 
intricate and marvellous combination. Holding as 
yet but slackly to reality, and imperfectly compre- 
hending the entangled panorama of the social world 
around, it is a true education as well as a delightful 
amusement for it to study human nature in the mimic 
scenes of fiction or poetry. 

It can never, therefore, avail to indulge in polem- 



WHAT TO BEAD. 215 

ics, religious or otherwise, against fiction reading. 
In excess or misdirected, such reading is hurtful 
and even dangerous, to moral principle as well as 
intellectual strength ; but any other sort of reading 
would be also more or less hurtful if excessive and 
ill-directed. The cure for this is not abstinence, but 
regulation. Fiction will be always an important and 
exciting element of education ; to the young espe- 
cially so ; and the great matter here and everywhere 
should be to guide their taste, and not vainly to try 
to extinguish it. 

To every Christian parent and teacher it should 
be a source of unfeigned congratulation that our 
modern light literature is of such an improved char- 
acter. It may not only be read for the most part 
with impunity by the young, but is fitted in many 
respects to form a high and valuable discipline for 
them. If any one wdshes to measure the change 
that has taken place in it, he has only to turn to the 
most characteristic fiction and poetry of the last 
century, and see what a different spirit animates 
them. It is not only that we miss in them the same 
positive character of good, but that w T e meet every- 
where with positive elements of evil. The moral spirit 
is not only not pure, but is sometimes corrupted to 
an extent that makes us shrink from contact with 
works which, in the rare power and charm of their 
genius, have become immortal. Notwithstanding 
their varied excellences, their vigor and robustness 
of thought, the grace, felicity, and finish of their 



216 BEGINNING LIFE. 

style, their bright and ingenious wit, and sparkling, 
easy-hearted gayety, there are many of the most 
notable of these works seriously not fit for youthful 
perusal, so deeply poisoned are they with the taint 
of grossness and defiling insinuation. And even 
where this is not the case, there is little that is mor- 
ally elevating or noble in the fictitious writings of 
the last century. Life as a whole — in its complete 
conception of a moral reality struggling with diffi- 
culties and beset by temptations and victorious by 
principle — is but feebly represented. The main 
struggle is that of passion, the main interest that of 
intrigue, all centred round a narrow and compara- 
tively low conception of life. The Clarissas and 
Lovelaces, the Leonoras and Horatios, the crowd of 
Belindas, Celindas, and Eugenias, and even the 
hearty and courteous pleasantry of Sir Roger de 
Coverly and the well-meant fun of Isaac Bickerstaff, 
Esq., are but one-sided and inadequate representa- 
tions. Piquant and interesting as they may be, no 
one would say the young could get much good of 
any kind from the study of them. It is in the main 
fashionable comedy or the mere tragedy of lower 
power. 

Our present literature presents a marked con- 
trast to these characteristics. It is informed with 
a deeper feeling, and altogether a more sacred and 
higher idea of life. It is, in fact, matter of criti- 
cism that our fiction has trespassed too obviously on 
ethical and religious grounds, and sought to point 



WHAT TO BEAD. 217 

its moral too obtrusively, instead of merely "hold- 
ing up the mirror" to all that is most beautiful and 
earnest in human faith and life. This is a casual 
excess — the recoil of the spring after having been 
depressed unduly. The advantage is unequivocal 
in a moral, whatever it may be in an artistic point 
of view. All that is most characteristic and excel- 
lent in our present fiction we unhesitatingly com- 
mend to the perusal of the young. There is a per- 
vading presence of good in it — the reflection of a 
spirit that loves the good and hates the evil. The 
follies and vices of society are exposed by a Thack- 
eray with a pencil which borrows none of its pow- 
ers or piquancy from contact with the degradation 
which it paints. The kindly spirit, warning to what 
is noble and self-sacrificing, rejoicing in what is ten- 
der and true, everywhere looks from beneath the 
caustic touches of the satirist or the dark colors of 
the artist.* In our most familiar sketches and cari- 
catures there may be sometimes feebleness, Jput there 
is never pruriency; a free yet delicate handling per- 
vades them, exciting laughter without folly, and war- 
ranting their introduction into families without fear 
of starting a blush on the most modest cheek or ex- 
citing the least questionable emotion. 

Looking to the moral effect of our modern poetry 
and fiction upon the young, there is nothing more 
deserving of commendation than the increased spirit 

% This, we are sorry to say, is scarcely true of some of Mr. 
Thackeray's recent delineations, snch as "Lovel the Widower." 

Beginning Life, X.\ t 



218 BEGINNING LIFE. 

of human sympathy for -which they are remarkable. 
The literature of the last age was especially defec- 
tive in this respect. It lacked genial tenderness or 
earnest sympathy for human suffering and wrong. 
Its very pathos was hard and artificial. It wept 
over imaginary sorrows; it rejoiced in merely senti- 
mental triumphs. In contrast to this, the poetry 
and fiction of our time concern themselves closely 
with the common sorrows and joys of the human 
heart. The pages of Dickens and Kingsley, and 
Miss Mulock and Mrs. Gaskell, and Mrs. Oliphant 
and George Eliot are all intensely realistic. A deep- 
thoughted tenderness for human miseries, and a high 
aspiration after human improvement, animates all 
of them. It is impossible to read their novels with- 
out having our moral sentiments touched and drawn 
forth. The same is eminently true of the poetry of 
Mr. Tennyson, Mrs. Browning, and others. It is 
almost more than any thing characterized by a spirit 
of impassioned philanthropy, of intense yearning 
over worldly wrong and error, "ancient forms of 
party strife," and of lofty longing after a higher 
good than the, world has yet known — 

' ' Sweeter manners, purer laws, 
The larger heart, the kindlier hand." 

It is impossible for the young to love such poetry 
and to study it without a kindling in them of some- 
thing of the same affectionate interest in human 
welfare and aspiration after Iranian improvement. 
In both our fiction and poetry, life is presented, 



WHAT TO KEAD. 219 

if not in its fully sacred reality, yet as an earnest 
conflict with actual toils and duties and trials — a 
varied movement, neither of frivolity nor profligacy, 
as in so much of our older imaginative literature — 
but of work and passion, of mirth and sorrow, of 
pure affection and every-day trial. The picture is 
realized by all as true and kindred. It comes home 
to us, moving us with a deeper indignation at wrong, 
or a holier tenderness for suffering, or a higher ad- 
miration of those simple virtues of gentleness and 
love and long-suffering which, more than all heroic 
deeds, make life beautiful, and purify and brighten 
home. A literature thus true to the highest inter- 
ests of humanity, seeking its worthiest inspiration 
and most touching pictures in the common life we 
all live — in the darkness and the light there are in 
all human hearts, the wrongs and sufferings, the 
joys and griefs, the struggles and heroisms that are 
everywhere around us — such a literature has a seed 
of untold good in it, and, forming as it does the chief 
mental food of thousands of young men, it must help 
to develop virtue, and strengthen true and generous 
and Christian principle. It is such a literature, al- 
though in still grander and more sacred proportions, 
that Milton pictured to himself in one of his splen- 
did passages: "These abilities, wheresoever they be 
found, are the inspired gift of God, rarely bestowed, 
but yet to some — though most obscure — in every 
nation ; and are of power, beside the office of a pul- 
pit, to inbreed and cherish in a great people the 



220 BEGINNING LIFE. 

seeds of virtue and public civility ; to allay the per- 
turbations of the mind, and to set the affections on 
a right tune ; to celebrate in glorious* and lofty hymns 
the throne and equipage of God's almightiness, and 
what he works and what he suffers to be wrought 
with high providence in his church ; to sing victori- 
ous agonies of martyrs and saints; the deeds and 
triumphs of just and pious nations, doing valiantly 
through faith against the enemies of Christ; to de- 
plore the general relapses of kingdoms and states 
from justice and God's true worship. Whatsoever 
in religion is holy and sublime, in virtue amiable or 
grave ; whatsoever hath passion or admiration in all 
the changes of that which is called fiction from with- 
out, or the only subtilties and reflexes of man's 
thought from within — all these things with a solid 
and tractable smoothness to point out and describe, 
teaching over the whole book of sanctity, through 
all the instances of example, with such delight to 
those especially of soft and delicious temper, who 
will not so much as look upon Truth herself unless 
they see her elegantly dressed: that whereas the 
paths of honesty and good life appear now rugged 
and difficult, though they indeed be easy and pleas- 
ant, they will then appear to all men both easy and 
pleasant, though they were rugged and difficult in- 
deed." 

It is unnecessary for us to try to point out fur- 
ther those works in our modern poetry and fiction 
which deserve the attention of young men. Of 



WHAT TO BEAD. 221 

course, they will read what is most 'popular and 
interesting. There is one writer, however, neither 
a poet nor a novelist, and yet in some respects both, 
whom we feel urged to commend to their study — 
the author of "Friends in Council," "Essays Writ- 
ten in the Intervals of Business," and " Companions 
of my Solitude," etc. These volumes are charming 
at once .for their literary finish, their genial earnest- 
ness, and their thoughtful, ethical spirit. A vivid 
sense of the sacred power of duty ; a quiet, glancing 
humor, which lights up every topic with grace and 
variety; a shrewd knowledge of the world and its 
ways, tinged with sadness, pervade them, and are 
fitted to render them eminently impressive and im- 
proving to the young and book-loving. They invite 
by their easy, genial, and attractive style; they 
inform, instruct, and discipline by their broad and 
observant wisdom, and the wide intelligence and 
keen love of truth with which they discuss many 
important questions, and present the varying phases 
of human life. 

We should further urge upon young men the 
necessity of extending their studies in the lighter 
departments of literature beyond their own age. 
They must and will read mainly, as we have sup- 
posed, the fiction and poetry of their time, but in 
order to get any adequate culture from this sort of 
reading they must do something more. They must 
study English poetry in its successive epochs, as- 
cending by such stages as are represented by the 



222 BEGINNING LIFE. 

great names of Wordsworth, and Cowper, and Dry- 
den, and Milton, and Shakespeare. To study thor- 
oughly the great works of any of these poets, espe- 
cially of* Wordsworth, or Milton, or Shakespeare, or 
Spenser, is a lasting educational gain. Any youth 
who spends his leisure over the pages of the "Ex- 
cursion," or the "Paradise Lost," or the "Fairy 
Queen," or the higher dramas of Shakespeai^, is 
engaged in an important course of intellectual dis- 
cipline. And if you would wish to know the charms 
of literary delight in their full freedom and acquisi- 
tion, you must have often recourse to these great 
lights of literature, and seek to kindle your love for 
"whatsoever hath passion or admiration" at the 
flame of their genius. 

Altogether it is evident what a wide field of 
study is before every young man who loves books, 
and would seek to improve himself by their study. 
The field is only too wide and varied, were it not 
that different tastes will seek different parts of it, 
and leave the rest comparatively alone. Whatever 
part you may select, devote yourself to it. If his- 
tory, or science, or belles-lettres be your delight, 
read with a view not merely to pass the time, but 
really to cultivate and advance your intellectual life. 
The mere dilettante will never come to any thing. 
Read whatever you read with enthusiasm, with a 
generous yet critical sympathy. Make it your own. 
Take it up by lively and intelligent application at 
every point into your own mental system, and as- 



WHAT TO READ. 223 

similate it. This is not to be done without pains. 
Many never attain to it. And so they read, and 
continue to read, and find no good. They are no 
wiser nor better after than before, simply because 
they read mechanically. They have a sense of duty 
in the matter which prescribes the allotted task, but 
they do not take care that the task be interesting as 
well as imperative. An active interest, however, is 
a condition of all mental improvement. The mind 
only expands or strengthens when it is fairly awa- 
kened. Give to all your reading an awakened atten- 
tion, a mind alive and hungering after knowledge, 
and whether you read history, or poetry, or science, 
or theology, or even fiction of a worthy kind, it will 
prove to you a mental discipline, and bring you 
increase of wisdom. 



PART IV. 



RECREATION. 



10* 





Wow to Enjoy. 

r VEEY life that is at all healthy and 
happy must have its enjoyments as well 
its duties. It cannot bear the constant 
strain of grave occupation without losing 
something of its vitality and sinking into 
feebleness. Asceticism may have construed life as 
an unceasing routine of duty — of work done for 
some grave or solemn purpose. But asceticism has 
neither produced the best work nor the noblest 
lives of which our world can boast. In its effort to 
elevate human nature, it has risen at the highest to 
a barren grandeur. It has too often relapsed into 
moral weakness or perversity. Human nature, as a 
prime condition of health, must recreate itself — must 
have its moments of unconscious play, when it 
throws off the burden of work and rejoices in the 
mere sensation of its own free activity. 

And youth must especially have such opportuni- 
ties of recreation. It thirsts for them — it is all on 
the alert to catch them ; and if denied to it, it dwin- 
dles from its proper strength, or pursues illegitimate 
and hurtful gratifications. A young man without 
the love of amusement is an unnatural phenome- 
non ; and an education that does not provide for 



228 BEGINNING LIFE. 

recreation as well as study would fail of its higher 
end from the very exclusiveness with which it aims 
to reach it. 

Yet it must be admitted that the subject of recre- 
ation is one attended with peculiar difficulties. Not, 
indeed, so long as youth remains at school and under 
the guidance of external authority. It is then little 
more than a matter of games and healthy exercise, 
in which the animal spirits are chafed into pleasant 
excitement, and the physical frame hardened into 
healthy vigor. The proportion which such school 
recreation should bear to school work — the best 
modes of it — the games which are best fitted for 
youth in its different stages — and the organization 
necessary to give them their happiest effect — are all 
points which may require attention or involve some 
discussion. But the peculiar difficulties of the sub- 
ject do not emerge so far. It is only when youth 
has outgrown the scholastic age, and begun life on 
its own account — when it has tasted the freedom 
and the power of opening manhood — that recrea- 
tion is felt to run closely alongside of temptation, 
and that the modes and measures in which it should 
be indulged are found to involve considerations of a 
very complex and delicate character. 

Neither here nor anywhere is it the intention of 
the writer to lay down formal rules, but rather 
to suggest principles. Nothing, probably, less ad- 
mits of definite and unvarying rules than amuse- 
ment. Its very nature is to be somewhat free from 



HOW TO ENJOY. 229 

rule. It is the gratification of an impulse, and not 
the following out of a plan. To lay down plans of 
amusement is to contradict the very instinct out of 
which it springs, and to convert recreation into 
work. No man, certainly, can be kept safe from 
harm by enclosing himself in a palisade of rules, and 
allowing himself to enjoy this, and refusing to enjoy 
that. Moral confusion, and, consequently, weak- 
ness, is more likely to come from such a course as^ 
this than any thing else. The best and the only 
effectual guide we can have is that of a rightly con- 
stituted heart, which can look innocently abroad 
upon life, and winch, fixed in its main principles 
and tendencies, is comparatively heedless of details. 
It is from within, and not from without — from con- 
science, and not from law, that our highest moni- 
tion must come. Young men must seek freedom 
from temptation in the strength of a divine commu- 
nion that guards them from evil. This is primary. 
Secondarily, there are certain outward occasions of 
temptations which it may be incumbent upon them 
to avoid, and to which we shall give a few words in 
another chapter. 

Primarily and essentially, the heart must be 
rightly fixed in order to innocent enjoyment. Noth- 
ing else will avail. "Whether ye eat or drink, or 
whatsoever ye do," says the apostle, "do all to the 
glory of God." There is a profound significance in 
this text. Our lives, not merely in some points or 
relations, but in all points and relations, must be 



230 BEGINNING LIFE. 

near to God. Not merely in our solemn moods, or 
our grave occupations, but in our ordinary actions, 
our moments of enjoyment, our eating and drink- 
ing — the emblematic acts of enjoyment — must we 
recognize and own the presence of God. The grand 
idea of the glory of God, and the most common 
aspects of life, are in immediate relation to one 
another. 

And this points to an essential and distinguish- 
ing characteristic of Christianity. It is no mere 
religion of seasons or places ; it is no mere series of 
things to be believed, nor of duties to be done; it 
rests upon the one, and prescribes the other; but it 
is more characteristically than either a new spirit, 
and life pervading the whole moral and mental 
activities, and coloring and directing them at every 
point. The Christian is brought within the blessed 
sphere of a divine communion that animates all his 
being. From the happy centre of reconciliation 
with God, there goes forth in him a life — it may be 
very imperfect, answering but feebly to its own as- 
pirations, yet a life touched in all its energies with a 
divine quickening, and bearing on all a divine im- 
press. In such a life there is and can be nothing 
unrelated to God. Awful thought as the glory of 
God is, so soon as the soul is turned to the light 
of the divine love, that glory is ever near at hand, 
and not far off to it. There is nothing common 
nor unclean to the Christian. He cannot lead two 
lives ; he cannot serve the world with the flesh, and 



HOW TO ENJOY. 231 

serve God with the spirit. He may often do this in 
point of fact. The law in his members may prove 
too strong for the better law of his mind, and bring 
him into captivity to the law of sin and death to his 
members. But all this is in contradiction to the 
ideal of the Christian life ; it is in no respect recon- 
cilable with it. In its conception, it is a whole' and 
not a part — a whole consecrated to God — a living, 
breathing, harmonious reality, all whose aspirations 
are Godward. 

It is clear that to such a Christian the question of 
enjoyment will not present itself so much in detail as 
in principle. His first concern will be not what he 
should do or not do — whether he should court this 
amusement or reject it, take this liberty or deny 
himself it; but what he is — whether he is indeed 
within the sphere of divine communion and sharing 
in its blessing. He will not seek to mould his life 
from the outside, but to give free play and scope to 
the Divine Spirit strong within him, that it may an- 
imate every phase of his activity, and sanctify all he 
does. 

If any young man asks, how he is to enjoy him- 
self, in what way he may yield to those instincts of 
.his nature w^hich crave for amusement, he must first 
ask himself the serious question, Whether he is 
right at heart? Has he chosen the good? Unless 
there is a settlement of this previous question, the 
other can scarcely be said to have any place. For 
if God is not in all his life, it must be of little prac- 



232 BEGINNING LIFE. 

tical consequence to him whether one enjoyment 
be more or less dangerous than another. Every 
thing is dangerous, because undivine to him. He 
sees God nowhere. The light of the divine glory 
rests on nothing to him ; and the most noble work, 
therefore, no less than the most trivial amusement, 
may serve to harden his heart and leave him more 
godless than before. But again, if he has settled 
this prime question, and chosen the good, then he 
will carry with him into all his indulgences the 
Spirit of the good. That Spirit will ward off evil 
from him, and guard him in temptation, and guide 
him in difficulty. He will not be scrupulous or 
afraid of this or that; but he will take enjoy- 
ment as it comes, and as his right. He will feel it 
to be a little thing to be judged of a man's judg- 
ment, and yet he will be careful not to offend his 
brother. All things may be lawful to him, but all 
things will not be expedient. He will use a wise 
discretion — refraining where he might indulge, us- 
ing his liberty without abusing it, eating whatso- 
ever is set before him, asking no questions; and 
yet when questions are started, obviously sincere, 
and arising out of moral scruples, he will abstain 
rather than give offence. He will have, in short, a. 
wise discernment of good and evil, a tact of judg- 
ment which will guide him far better than any mere 
outward rules. 

The question, "How to enjoy?" is therefore in its 
right sense always a secondary, never a primary 



HOW TO ENJOY. 233 

question. It comes after the question of duty, and 
never before it; and where the main question is 
rightly resolved, the secondary one becomes com- 
paratively easy of solution. Principle first; play 
afterward. And if there be the root of right princi- 
ple in us, we will not, need not, trouble ourselves 
minutely as to modes of amusement. We will take 
enjoyment with a free and ample hand, if it be 
granted to us. We will know how to want it, if it 
be denied to us. We will know both how to be 
abased and how to abound ; and in whatever state 
we are, therein learn, like the great apostle, to be 
content. 

Of one thing w T e may be sure. Enjoyment in it- 
self is meant to be a right and a blessing, and not a 
snare. This is a very important truth for the young 
to understand. Life is open to them; amusement 
is free to them. They are entitled to live freely and 
trustfully, and enjoy all — if only the sense of duty 
and of God remain with then>— if only they remem- 
ber that for all these things God will bring them 
into judgment. Under this proviso they may taste 
of enjoyment as liberally as their natures crave, and 
their opportunities offer. To preach any thing else 
to the young, is neither true in itself nor can possi- 
bly be good to them. To teach them to be afraid 
of enjoyment, is to make them doubtful of their own 
natural and healthy instincts ; and as these instincts 
remain, nevertheless, and constantly reassert their 
power, it is to introduce an element of hurtful per- 



234 BEGINNING LIFE. 

plexity into their life. They are urged on by nature ; 
they are held back by authority. And if the rein of 
the outward law imposed upon them once break, 
they are plunged into darkness. They have no 
guide. It is vain to enter into this struggle with 
nature : it is cruel and wrong to do it. Nature must 
have play, and is to be kept within bounds by its 
own wise training, and the development of a higher 
spirit within, and not by mere dictation and arbi- 
trary compulsion from without. 

There is no point, perhaps, upon which educa- 
tion of every kind more frequently fails than upon 
this very point — the education which we give our- 
selves, as well as that which others give us, in youth. 
For it is a mistake to suppose, as we have hinted in 
a former chapter, that the sole or perhaps the chief 
danger of young men is, that they are too indulgent 
to themselves. Many are so. Many unthinking 
youths may so give the rein to nature in its lower 
sense that every high and pure impulse is destroyed 
in them. But of those who are capable of thought, 
and who aim at self-culture, not a few are more 
'likely to break down in their aims from striving 
after too much than too little. They are apt to gird 
themselves with rules, and to lay artificial yokes 
upon the free development of their nature, rather 
than to yield too much to its own elastic impulses. 
They become very stern theorists, some of these 
young men, and they look on life with a hard and 
dogmatic assurance, parcelling out with a formal 



HOW TO ENJOY. 235* 

and ignorant hand the good and evil in it. They 
are wise as to the kinds of enjoyment, and rigidly 
carry out their own maxims, as well as seek to en- 
force them upon others. 

This is not the spirit from which there ever 
groweth a fine* and noble character in a young man. 
It lacks the first essential of all youthful nobleness — 
modesty — the freshness of a trustful docility. The 
chance is that it breaks down altogether in its theo- 
retic confidence, as experience proves too strong for 
it ; or that it matures into a narrow fanaticism which 
misinterprets both life and religion, and proves at 
once a misery to itself and a nuisance to others. 
Ascetic formality is the refuge of a weak moral 
nature, or the wretchedness of a strong one. How- 
far even a noble mind may sink under' it — to what 
depths of despairing imbecility and almost impiety 
it may reach — we have only to study the austerities 
of Pascal to see. W6 are told that "Pascal would 
not permit himself to be conscious of the relish of 
his food; he prohibited all seasonings and spices, 
however much he might wish for and need them ; 
and he actually died because he forced the diseased 
stomach to receive at each meal a certain amount of 
aliment, neither more nor less, whatever might be 
his appetite at the time, or his utter want of appe- 
tite. He wore a girdle armed with iron spikes, 
which he was accustomed to drive in upon his 
body — his fleshless ribs — as often as he thought 
himself in need of such admonition. He was an- 



•236 BEGINNING LIFE. 

noyed and offended if any in his hearing might 
chance to say that* they had jusfc seen a beautiful 
woman. He rebuked a mother who permitted her 
own- children to give her their kisses. Toward a 
loving sister, who devoted herself to his comfort, 
he assumed an artificial harshness *of manner for 
the express purpose, as he acknowledged, of revolting 
her sisterly affection." 

And all this sprung from the simple principle 
that earthly enjoyment was inconsistent with reli- 
gion. Once admit this principle, and there is no 
limit to the abject and unhappy consequences that 
may be drawn from it. The mind, thrown off any 
dependence upon its own instincts, is cast into the 
arms of some blind authority or dogmatism which 
tyrannizes over it, reducing it more frequently to 
weakness than bracing it up to endurance and 
heroism. 

No doubt it will be the impulse of every Chris- 
tian man, and it ought no less to be so of every 
Christian youth, to " rejoice with trembling." While 
he hears the voice saying to him, on the one hand, 
'• Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy 
heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and 
walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the sight of 
thine eyes ;" he will not forget the voice that says 
to him, on the other hand, "But know thou, that 
for all these things God will bring thee into judg- 
ment." The voices are one, in fact; and if he is 
wise he will acknowledge their unity, and be sober 



HOW TO ENJOY. 237 

in his very mirth, and temper the hour of cheerful- 
ness with thought of responsibility. There is some- 
thing in the heart of the young that intimates this 
as the true mean. There is often a monition of 
warning in the very moment of mirth. The joy is 
well. It is the natural expression of a healthy and 
well-ordered frame ; it leaps up to meet the oppor- 
tunity as the lark to greet the morn. The move- 
ment of nature is as clear in the one case, as in the 
other ; yet there is a background of moral conscious- 
ness lying behind the human instinct, and always 
ready to cast the shadows of thought — of reflective 
responsibility over it. Rejoice, it says; but rejoice 
like one who is a moral being, and w^hose primary 
law, therefore, is not enjoyment, but duty. 

Moreover, there is that which immediately re- 
minds us of the same truth in the result which fol- 
lows all excess of enjoyment. The tide of feeling, 
when it rises to an unwonted height of joyful ela- 
tion — -certainly when it allows itself to be carried 
away by mere thoughtless and boisterous impulse — 
almost invariably returns upon itself, collapses in 
reaction and exhaustion. Our constitution contains 
within itself a check to all undue excitement. This 
check is, no doubt, often ineffectual, but it is so at 
the expense of the constitution, and the very capa- 
city of enjoyment which may overtask itself. This 
capacity wastes by excessive use. Of nothing may 
the young man be more sure than this. If he will 
rejoice without thought and without care in the 



238 BEGINNING LIFE. 

days of his youth, he will leave but little power of 
enjoyment for his manhood or old age. If he keep 
the flame of passion burning, and plunge into ex- 
citement after excitement in his heyday, there will 
be nothing but feebleness and exhaustion in his 
maturity. He cannot spend his strength and have 
it too. He cannot drink of every source of pleas- 
ure, and have his taste uncloyed and his thirst fresh 
as at the first. 

There is need here of a special caution in a time 
like ours. There are young men who nowadays 
exhaust pleasure in their youth. The comparative 
freedom of modern life encourages an earlier en- 
trance into the world, and an earlier assumption of 
manly manners and habits than was wont to be. 
Pleasure is cheaper and more accessible — the pleas- 
ure of travel, pleasure of many kinds ; and it is no 
uncommon thing to find young men who have run 
the round of manly pleasure' before they have well 
attained to mans estate, and who are blase with 
the world before the time that their fathers had 
really entered into it. There may not be many of 
those for whom these pages are chiefly written of 
this class ; but something of the same tendency ex- 
ists among all classes of the young. They all attain 
sooner to the rights of manhood, and the premature 
use of these rights becomes an abuse. To mention 
nothing else, the prevalence of smoking among the 
young is an illustration of what we mean. Even 
should it be admitted that this habit can be prac- 



HOW TO ENJOY. 239 

tisecl in moderation with impunity and as a legiti- 
mate source of pleasure by tlie full-grown man, it 
must be held to be altogether inappropriate to the 
young. The youthful frame can stand in no need 
of any stimulating or sedative influence it may 
impart. The overworked brain or the overtasked 
physical system may receive no injury, or may even 
receive some benefit — we do not profess to give any 
opinion on the subject — from an indulgence which 
is absolutely pernicious to the fresh, healthy, and 
still developing constitution. And that smoking is 
an indulgence of this class cannot be doubted. 
Granting it to be a permissible enjoyment, it is not 
so to the young. . So far as they are concerned, it 
involves in its very nature the idea of excess. Their 
physical constitution should contain within itself the 
abundant elements of enjoyment. If healthy and 
unabused, it no doubt does so ; and the application 
of a narcotic like tobacco is nothing else than a vio- 
lent interference with its free and natural action. 

The avoidance of all excess is a golden rule in 
enjoyment. It may be a hard, and in certain cases 
an impossible rule to the young. In the abundance 
of life there is a tendency to overflows and when 
the ycTung heart is big with excited emotion it seems 
vain to speak of moderation. Every one, probably, 
will be able to recall hours when, amid the competi- 
tive gladness of school or college companions, the 
impulses of enjoyment seemed to burst all bounds, 
and ran into the most riotous excitement; and in 



240 BEGINNING LIFE. 

the reminiscences of such hours there may be the 
charm as of a long-lost pleasure never to be felt 
again ; but if the memory be fairly interrogated, it- 
will be found that even then there is a drawback — 
some latent dissatisfaction and weariness, or some- 
thing worse, that grew out of the very height or 
overplus of that rapturous enjoyment. Ever with 
pleasure attendant miseries pursue. As a great 
humorist* has said— 

"E'en the bright extremes of joy 
Bring on conclusions of disgust." 

Assuredly the most durable and the best pleasures 
are all tranquil pleasures. And it is just one of the 
lessons which change the sanguine anticipations of 
•youth into the sober experience of manhood that 
the true essence of attainable enjoyment is not in 
bursts of excitement, but in the moderate flow of 
healthy and happy, because well-ordered emotion. 

As we set out by saying, it is impossible to 
regard this or any other element of life apart from 
religion. To many, no doubt, it seems widely sep- 
arated from it. The very name of recreation calls 
up to them ideas with which they would think it an 
absurdity or even an impiety to associate religion. 
The latter is a solemnity — the former is a frivolity 
or festivity — and each is to be kept in its proper 
place. To speak of religion having any thing to do 
with the amusements or enjoyments of the young 
would appear to such to be the wildest absurdity. 
* Thomas Hood. 



HOW TO ENJOY. 241 . 

Yet it is a true, and, from a right point of view, only 
the most sober judgment, that the spirit of religion 
must pervade every aspect of life — that there is no 
part of our activity can be fully separated from it. 
We must be Christian in our enjoyments as in every 
thing. The young man must carry with him into 
his recreations not merely feelings of honor, but the 
feelings of justice, purity, truth, and tenderness that 
become the gospel. He must do this, if he be a 
Christian at .all. At least, in so far as he does not 
do this, he does discredit to his Christian profes- 
sion. He fails to realize and exemplify it in its full 
meaning. 

It is this upon which we must fall back here and 
everywhere. It is the spirit of the gospel to rejoice, 
and yet to do so with sobriety; to rejoice where God 
fills the heart with gladness — where opportunity and 
companionship invite to mirth and cheerfulness; 
and yet to be sober when we think how fleeting all 
joy is — how soon the clouds and darkness follow the 
glad sunshine — how many are dwelling in the "house 
of mourning" — what a shadow of death and of judg- 
ment encompasses all human life. To be cheerful 
and yet to be sober-minded — to laugh when it is a 
time for laughter — to 4 * have no gloom in our heart, 
and yet to have no wantonness in it — and to be 
"pitiful and courteous" towards others' sorrow, 
should God spare ourselves from it— this is the 
right spirit, truly human, (the latter because it is 
the former.) It may seem sufficiently simple of 

Beginning Life, 1 1 



242 BEGINNING LIFE. 

attainment; but its very simplicity makes its diffi- 
culty. There is nothing notable in it — only the 
harmony of a healthy, Christian soul. It is by no 
means easy of reach; but by God's help it may in 
some measure be the portion of all who will humbly 
learn his truth and follow his will. 





What to -pNJOY. 

^OUTH must have its recreations. En- 
joyment must mingle largely in the life 
of every healthy young man — enjoyment lib- 
eral yet temperate. The general proposi- 
tion does not admit of reasonable dispute; 
but when we descend to details, and consider the 
particular forms of enjoyment which the world offers 
to young men, we find ourselves very soon surround- 
ed with difficulties. Eecreation becomes a complex 
question, in which good is greatly mingled with 
evil ; and some of its most f amihar forms have long 
been, and probably will long remain, subjects of 
vehement argument. 

Especially does argument arise in reference to 
the very period of life which'we are contemplating. 
In younger years, or again in older years, -the diffi- 
culty is less urgent, or at least it solves itself more 
readily. The inexperience of mere boyhood pro- 
tects it from the evil that may be seductive to the 
young man; and again the experience of mature 
years is so far a preservative from the same evil. 
The boy has not yet reached the age of action or of 



244: BEGINNING LIFE. 

self-choice in the matter ; the man of experience has 
•already formed his practical philosophy of life, and 
taken the direction of his conduct into his own hands 
beyond the control of advice from any other, The 
difficulty lies in the main before the young man who 
is forming his philosophy of life : how he shall act in 
reference to certain forms of worldly enjoyment — 
how far these are consistent with a Christian char- 
acter — how far the element of temptation mingled 
up in them should deter him from participation in 
them — how far the element of good in them may 
claim the recognition of his free reason and inde- 
pendent judgment. 

Before passing to the consideration of this diffi- 
culty, however, there are certain forms of recreation 
so obviously and undeniably legitimate as to claim 
from us a few words of recommendation. 

The active sports of boyhood may be, and as far 
as possible should be, carried into early manhood. 
Cricket, or football, or golf, or whatever game car- 
ries the young man into the open air, braces his mus- 
cles, and strengthens his health, and procures the 
merry-hearted companionship of his fellows, should 
be indulged in without stint, so far as his opportuni- 
ties will permit and the proper claims of business or 
of study justify. The primary claims of both of 
these are of course everywhere presumed by us. 
We have only in view those who pursue such games 
as recreations. Those who pursue them to the neg- 
lect or disadvantage of higher claims upon their 



WHAT TO ENJOY. 245 

time, may of course turn them, as they may turn all 
things, into occasions of evil. * 

Our meaning simply is that viewing such games 
in their proper character, #s sources of enjoyment 
for the leisure hours of youth, they are of an abso- 
lutely innocent and beneficial character. They 
subserve in the highest degree the purposes of en- 
joyment by exercising pleasurably the physical sys- 
tem, stimulating the animal spirits, and calling forth 
the feelings of fair and honorable rivalry, of earnest 
and unconceding yet courteous competition. 

The healthy enjoyment of these sports might be 
the subject of extended description, but this would 
lead us away from our task. Those who prize and 
enjoy them, do not need any such description, and 
others would not be much the better of it. It can- 
not be too strongly borne in mind that this enjoy- 
ment is to some extent a moral as well as a physical 
gain. Moral and physical health, especially in 
youth, are intimately connected; and whatever rais- 
es the animal spirits without artificially exciting 
them, and stimulates the nervous energy without 
wasting it, is preservative of virtue, as well as con- 
ducive to bodily strength. The happy abandon- 
ment of cricket or football, the more steady yet 
equally keen excitement of golf, leave their traces in 
the higher as in the lower nature ; and, if well used 
they are really instruments of education as well as 
amusement. 

There is another class of amusements to which 



246 BEGINNING LIFE. 

young men may freely betake themselves as they 
have opportunity — footing and fishing. Both are 
time-honored, and both, if not free from tempta- 
tion — as nothing is — are yet so surrounded with 
healthful associations as to claim almost unqual- 
ified approval. There are, no doubt, questions — 
and questions not very easy of answer — that may be 
raised in reference to both these modes of recrea- 
tion. It seems strange, and in certain moods of our 
moral consciousness indefensible, that man should 
seek and find enjoyment in the destruction of inno- 
cent and happy life around him. It is strange and 
puzzling that it should be so ; and if we think mere- 
ly of the end of such sports, and try reflectively to 
realize them, we are not aware of any satisfactory 
trains of argument by which they can be clearly de- 
fended. But the truth is, there are not a few things 
in life which conscience practically allows, and sense 
justifies, yet which are scarcely capable of reflective 
vindication. They are not subjects of argument, 
and argument only becomes ridiculous and futile 
when applied therein. They answer to strong and 
healthy instincts in us — instincts given us by God, 
and which therefore justify their objects when legit- 
imately sought. But the objects looked at by them- 
selves have little or nothing to commend them to 
the reason or moral judgment. The destruction 
of animal life in sport seems to be such an object. 
Yiewed by itself it has nothing to commend it; it 
seems almost shocking to speak of sport in connee- 



* WHAT TO ENJOY. 247 

tion with it ; yet instinct and sense not only justify 
such sport, but approve of it*as among the healthi- 
est recreations that we can pursue. Any man who 
would argue against either shooting or fishing 
because of the cruelty they seem to involve, is 
regarded as an amiable enthusiast to whom it is 
useless to make any reply. Supposing he has all 
the argument on his side from his point of view, 
sportsmen see the thing from an entirely different 
point of view, and while they do not care to dispute 
the argument, they go their way quite unimpressed 
by^ it, and strong in the feeling that their way is in 
the highest degree justifiable. 

It is not the destruction of animal life which they 
directly contemplate. On the contrary, when this 
destruction is secured and made easy, as sometimes 
happens, it is rightly said that there is no*sport. It 
is the healthful exercise, the ready skill, the risks, 
the adventure, the "chase" in short, rather than 
tha "game," that they regard. The sportsman, as 
he sets out, thinks of the breezy morn, or the open 
day— the crisp and bracing air — the walk through 
the fields or by the stream — the excitement of the 
search — the happy adventures with which he will 
attain his object — the pleasure of success — the 
pleasure even should he fail. His mind dwells 
upon every pleasing accessory, and the idea of pain 
to the destroyed animals seldom or never occurs to 
him. 

It is a singular enough fact that angling, which « 



248 BEGINNING LIFE. 

to the reflective imagination can certainly vindicate 
itself as little as shooting, has come to be esteemed 
as a peculiarly gentle and innocent aihusement. An- 
glers are all of a "gentle craft/' and a quiet, pen- 
sive, peaceful, harmless happy air — breathed from 
the spirit of old Izaak Walton, and long before he 
lived to symbolize it — is supposed to rest upon their 
pursuit. Nothing can show more strikingly how 
completely it is the accessories, and not the end, of 
this amusement that common sense and tradition- 
ary feeling contemplate. It were vain to say that 
common sense and traditionary feeling are wro^g. 
Beyond doubt they are right on such a subject. 
The subject is one which belongs to their province, 
and not to the province of logic. And even if the 
logician should find himself driven to argue it from 
an opposite point of view, he would probably be 
found in his practice, and certainly in his ordinary 
moods of feeling, contradicting his own argument. 

In addition to such outdoor amusements, there 
are various forms of indoor amusement which claim 
some notice. It is more difficult to find indoor 
amusements for young men, for the simple reason 
that healthy and happy exercise is the idea which is 
chiefly associated with, and chiefly legitimates recre- 
ation on their part. And the open air is the natural 
place for such exercise. Yet indoor amusements 
must also be found. Music is one of the chief of 
these amusements, and certainly one of the most 
^innocent and elevating. 



WHAT TO ENJOY. 249 

Of all delights, to those who have the gift or 
taste for it, music is the most exquisite. To affix 
the term amusement to it is perhaffc scarcely fair. 
It is always more than this when duly appreciated. 
Luther ranked it as a science next in order to the- 
ology. "Whoever despises music," he said, "as 
is the case with all fanatics, with him I can never 
agree ; for music is a gift of God, and not a discovery 
of man. It keeps Satan at a distance ; and by making 
a man happy, he loses all anger, pride, and every 
other vice. After theology, I give music the second 
rank and highest honor; and we see how David, 
together with all the saints, have expressed their 
thoughts in verse, in rhyme, and in song." 

So Luther, with that manly and healthy instinct 
which always characterizes him. He loved music 
himself, and always found a solace in it ; and every 
sympathetic, and tender, and beautiful nature will 
do the same. It is not only a charm in itself, but a 
charm to keep us from idle and frivolous amuse- 
ments. While stealing the senses by its soft witch- 
ery, or stirring them by its brilliant mystery, it 
awakens, at the same time, the most hidden foun- 
tains of intellectual feeling, so that under its spell, 
more than at any other time, we feel 

"Though inland far >we be, 
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
Which brought us hither ; 
Can in a moment travel thither — 
And see the children sport upon the shore. 
And hear the mighty waters* rolling evermore." 

11* 



250 BEGINNING LIFE. 

There is no other recreation,' if this be the proper 
name for it at all, which is so purely intellectual. 
Other amusements, many games, may exercise the 
intellect, and even largely draw forth its powers of 
forethought, of decision and readiness; but music 
appeals to the soul in those deeper springs which 
lie close to spiritual and moral feeling. It lifts it 
out of the present and visible into the future and in- 
visible. -Even in its gayer and lighter strains it often 
does this, as well as in its more solemn and sacred 
chants. The simple lilt of a song which we have 
heard in youth, or which reminds us of home and 
country — some fragment of melody slight in mean- 
ing, yet exquisitely touching in sweet or pathetic 
wildness — will carry the soul into a higher region, 
and make a man feel kindred with the immortals. 

" O j°y • that in our embers 
Is something that doth live ; 
That nature yet remembers 
What was so fugitive!" 

A joy so precious as this, and which may minister 
to such high ends, is one which we are bound to 
cultivate in every manner, and for which we are 
warranted in seeking the fullest indulgence. 

As to the indoor amusements of which the game 
of billiards may be taken as the type, and the other 
class of amusements that follow, we feel at once 
that we are by no means on such secure ground as 
we have been treading. And yet it is not because 
we have passed into «& different region of fact — be- 



WHAT TO ENJOY. 251 

cause there is any thing in such a game as billiards 
that is immoral, or in any sense illegitimate. On 
the contrary, it is impossible to conceive any game 
in itself more innocent. It admits of exquisite skill, 
calls forth subtile ingenuities of head and hand, and 
promotes free movement and exercise. Tet it is no 
less the case that we would not consider it a good 
but a bad sign of any young man that he spent his 
time in billiard-rooms. We do not even excuse the 
same devotion to billiards, or at any such game, as 
we do to any of those outdoor and more invigora- 
ting sports of which we have spoken. We would 
infinitely rather see a young man fond of fishing, or 
shooting, or boating, or golf, or cricket, or any such 
sport, than we would see him fond of billiards. And 
yet billiard-playing is certainly in itself quite as in- 
nocent as any of these sports — another proof, if any 
were needed, that the common sense and judgment 
take in not merely the essential character of anj- 
game or amusement, but its whole accessories, and 
these often more prominently and determinately than 
any tMng else. A devotion to billiard-playing in a 
young man is rightly held to imply an idle and luxu- 
rious nature, and to involve much danger of evil com- 
panionship, which may prove of fatal consequence. 
We cannot say to any young man, Do not play bil- 
liards — it is wrong to do so; because we have no 
warrant to make such a statement — no one has. To 
affirm that to be wrong, which is not in itself wrong, 
which may be practised Tyith the most perfect inno- 



252 BEGINNING LIFE. 

cence — with the most warrantable enjoyment— -is a 
dogmatism of the worst kind, which can only breed 
that moral confusion in the minds of the young to 
which we have more than once adverted. And 
moral confusion is a direct parent of vice. When 
once the moral vision is clouded, and sees only in a 
maze, there is no security for right principle or con- 
sistent conduct. We do not venture to say thus 
therefore. But we do venture to say to every young 
man, It is not good for you to indulge in such an 
amusement. You can only do this at the expense 
of higher considerations. Many other amusements 
are better, more healthful in themselves, and more 
free from dangerous associations. 

The love of play of any kind in the shape of 
billiards or cards, or any thing else, is extremely 
hazardous : and in this lies the wrong ; it may prove, 
before you are well aware of it, a fatal passion. 
Whenever it begins to develop, you have passed the 
bounds of amusement ; and to indulge in any games 
but for amusement is at once an infatuation and 
temptation of the worst kind. It is only th# idea 
of amusement that sanctions any games. -Dissoci- 
ated from this idea, they become instruments of evil 
passion, to be repudiated by every good man. 

In reference to the theatre and festive parties 
among yourselves, all we can say is very much of 
the same character as we have now said. These 
things may not be necessarily evil, yet they gener- 
ally lead to evil ; and it is impossible, in the case of 



WHAT TO ENJOY. 253 

the theatre especially, as it has always existed and 
is likely to continue to exist among us, not to feel 
that the young man who seeks his amusement there 
is courting dangers of the most seductive and fatal 
character. Why so? Not certainly that there is 
any thing vicious in the representation of human 
passion and action upon the stage. Not surely that 
the drama is essentially vicious in its tendency, or 
sheds from it an immoral influence. On the con- 
trary, the drama is in its idea noble and exalting — 
one of the most natural, and therefore most effective 
expressions of literary art. Who may not be made 
wiser and better by the study of Shakespeare's won- 
derful creations? In what human compositions 
rather than in some of his plays would a young man 
seek the stimulus of high thoughts, and the excite- 
ment of lofty and heroic or gentle and graceful vir- 
tues ? Yet it remains no less true that the theatre 
is not, in its actual accessories, as it exists among 
us, a school of morals. Is it not too frequently the 
reverse ? Conceive the case of a young man, of 
good principles and unblemished character, carried 
by some of his companions, for the first time, to the 
theatre. Wquld the good or the evil influences be 
uppermost in such a case ? Would the associations 
of the place — the late hoars, the after entertain- 
ment — not cast into the shade any happier effects 
that might flow from what he heard or saw ? Would 
any Christian parent contemplate without uneasi- 
ness, a play-going fondness in his son ? In point of 



254 BEGINNING LIFE. 

fact, is such a fondness likely to lead to any good? 
Do the young men who most exhibit it develop into 
earnest, or excellent, or useful characters? These 
questions, we fear, are too easily answered in the 
negative. 

In the same manner festive parties among your- 
selves, how light and genial and happy may they 
be ! What feast of reason and flow of soul ! What 
flash of wit and cannonade of argument may they 
call forth ! What radiant sparks, the memory of 
which will never die out, but come back in the easy 
and humorous moments of an earnest and it may be 
a sad existence, and brighten up the past with the 
momentary coruscations of a departed brilliancy! 
What deep, hearty friendship may illuminate and 
beautify them ! Tet we know that such gladsome 
moments are peculiarly akin to danger. Merriment 
may pass into wantonness, and legitimate indul- 
gence into a riotous carouse. Moderation is the* 
difficulty of youth in every thing. Yet when the 
bounds of moderation are once passed, all the enjoy- 
ment is gone — recreation ceases. 

"Mirth and laughter, with all the jovial glee 
which circulates around the festive board, are only 
proper to the soul at those seasons when she is 
filled with extraordinary*gladness, and should wait 
till those seasons arrive in order to be partaken of 
wholesomely and well; but by artificial means to 
make an artificial excitement of the spirits is vio- 
lently to change the law and order of our nature, 



WHAT TO ENJOY. 255 

and to force it to that to which it is not willingly 
inclined. Without such high calls and* occasions, to 
make mirth and laughter is to belie nature, and mis- 
use the ordinance of God. It is a false glare, which 
doth but show the darkness and deepen the gloom. 
It is to w r ear out and dissipate the oil of gladness, 
so that, when gladness cometh, we have no light 01 
joy within our souls, and look upon it with baleful 
eyes. It is not a figure, but a truth, that those who 
make those artificial merriments night after night 
have no taste for natural mirth, and are gloomy and 
morose till the revels of the table or the lights of 
the saloon bring them to life again. Nature is 
worsted by art — ^artificial fire is stolen, but not from 
heaven, to quicken the pulse of life, and the pulse 
of life runs on with fevered speed, and the.strength 
of man is prostrated in a few brief years, and old 
age comes over the heart wdien life should yet be in 
its prime. And not only is heaves, made shipw T reck 
of, but the world is made shipwreck of — not only 
the spiritual man quenched, but the animal man 
quenched, by such unseasonable and intemperate 
merry-makings."'* 

In all your enjoyments, therefore, be moderate. 
The principle that leads and regulates you must be 
from within. The more the subject of recreation is 
candidly and comprehensively looked at, the more 
it is studied in a spirit of sense and reason, the more 
difficult will it appear to lay down any external rules 

* Edward Irving. 



256 BEGINNING LIFE. 

that shall make out its character and determine its 
indulgence. Everywhere the difficulty appears ex- 
treme, and all wise men will admit it to be so, when 
amusement is viewed merely from the outside. But 
look within, and set your heart right in the love of 
God and the faith of Christ, and difficulties will 
disappear. Your recreation will fit in naturally to 
your life. You will throw the evil from you, how- 
ever near you may sometimes come to it, and you 
will get the good which few things in the world are 
without. The inner life in you will assimilate to the 
Divine everywhere, and return its own blessed and 
consecrating influence to all your work and all your 
amusements. 



CONCLUSION. 



I LLIJUL^J. JU*iJ 



SE 



c 



ONCLUSION. 





*T is well for the young man, even in 
entering upon life, to remember its ter- 
mination, and how swiftly and suddenly the 
end may come. " Here we have no contin- 
uing city." "We are strangers and pilgrims, 
as all our fathers were," and the road of life at its 
very opening may pass from under us, and ere we 
have well entered upon the enjoyments and work of 
the present, we may be launched into the invisible 
and future w r orld that awaits us. At the best, life is 
but a brief space. "It appeareth for a little mo- 
ment, and then vanisheth away." It is but a flash 
out of darkness, soon again to return, into darkness. 
Or, as the old Saxon imagination conceived, it is 
like the swift flight of a bird from the night with- 
out, through a lighted chamber, filled with guests 
and warm with the breath of passion, back into the 
cold night again.* We stand, as it were, on a nar- 
row T "strip of shore, waiting till the tide, which has 
washed away hundreds of millions of our fellows, 
shall wash us away also into a country of which 
there are no charts, and from which there is no 
return." The image may be almost endlessly va- 
ried. The strange and singular uncertainty of life 

* Bede, 2. 13. 



260 BEGINNING LIFE. 

is a stock theme of pathos ; but no descriptive sen- 
sibility can really touch all the mournful tenderness 
which it excites. 

It is not easy for a young man, nor indeed for 
any man in*high health and spirits, to realize the 
transitoriness of life and all its ways. Nothing 
would be less useful than to fill the mind with 
gloomy images of death, and to torment the pres- 
ent by apprehensions as to the future. Religion 
does not require nor countenance any such morbid 
anxiety; yet it is good also to sober the thoughts 
with the consciousness of life's frailty and death's 
certainty. It is good above all to live every day as 
we would wish to have done when we come to die. 
We need not keep the dread event before us, but 
we should do our work and duty as if we were wait- 
ing for it, and ready ^p encounter it. "Whatsoever 
thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might : for 
there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor 
wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest." 

Our work here should always be preparatory for 
the end. Our enjoyment should be such as shall 
not shame us when we stand face to face with death. 
The young, and the old too, but especially the 
young, are apt to forget this. In youth we fail to 
realize the intimate dependency, the moral coheren- 
cy which binds life together everywhere, and gives 
an awful meaning to every part of it. We do not 
think of consequences as we recklessly yield to pas- 
sion, or stain the soul by sinful indulgence. But the 



CONCLUSION, 261 

storm of passion never fails to leave its waste, and 
the stain, although it may have been washed by the 
tears of penitence and the blood of a Saviour, re- 
mains. There is something different, something less 
firm, less clear, honest, or consistent in our life in 
consequence ; and the buried sin rises from its grave 
in our sad moments, and haunts us with its terror or 
abashes us with its shame. Assuredly it will find 
us out at last, if we los£ not all spiritual sensibility. 
When our feet begin "to stumble on the dark moun- 
tains," and the present loses its hold upon us, and 
the objects of sense wax faint and dim, there is often 
a strangely vivid light shed over our whole moral 
history. Our life rises before us in its complete 
development, and with the scars and wounds of sin 

just where we made them. The sorrow of an irre- 

« 

parable past comes upon us, and we are tortured in 
vain by the thought of the good w r e have thrown 
away, or of the evil we have made our portion. 

Let no young man imagine for a moment that it 
can ever be unimportant whether ho, yields to this 
or that sinful passion or — as it may appear to him 
at the time — venial indulgence. Let him not try to 
quiet his conscience by the thought that at the worst 
he will outlive the memory of his folly, and attain to 
a higher life in the future. Many may seem to him 
to have done this. Many of the greatest men have 
been, he may think, wild in youth. They have 
"sown their wild oats," as the saying is, and had 
done with them; and their future lives have only 



262 BEGINNING LIFE. 

appeared the more remarkable in view of the follies 
of their youth. A more mischievous delusion could 
not possibly possess the mind of any young man. 
[For as surely as the innermost law of the world is 
the law of moral retribution, they who sow wild oats 
will reap, in some shape or other, a sour and bitter 
harvest. For " whatsoever a man soweth that shall 
he also reap: he that soweth to the flesh, shall of 
the flesh reap corruption; he that soweth to the 
Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." 

There is nothing more sure than this law of moral 
connection and retribution. Life, through all its 
course, is a series of moral impulses and consequen- 
ces, each part of which bears the impress of all that 
goes before, and again communicates its impress to 
all that follows. And it is with the character which 
is the sum of all that we meet death and enter on 
the life to come. Every act of life — all our work 
and study and enjoyment, our temptations, our sins, 
our repentance, our faith, our virtue are preparing 
us, whether we think it or not, for haDpiness or mis- 
ery hereafter. It is this more than any thing that 
gives such a solemn character to the occupations of 
life. They are the lessons for a higher life. They 
are an education — a discipline for hereafter. This 
is their highest meaning. 

Let young men remember the essential bearing 
of the present upon the future. In beginning life, 
let them remember the end of it, and how it will be at 
the end as it has been throughout. All will be sum- 






CONCLUSION. 263 

rued up to this point ; and the future and the eter- 
nal will take their character from the present and 
the temporary. '^He that is unjust, let him be un- 
just still : and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still : 
and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still : 
and he that is holy, let him be holy still." The 
threads of our moral history run on in unbroken 
continuity. The shadow of death may cover them 
from the sight, but they emerge in the world beyond 
in like order as they were here. 

Make your present life, therefore, a preparation 
for death and the life to come. Make it such by 
embracing now the light and love of God your Fa- 
ther, by doing the work of Christ your Saviour and 
Master, by using the world without abusing it, by 
seeking in all your duties, studies, and enjoyments 
to become meet for a "better country, that is, a 
heavenly." To the youngest among you the time 
may be short. The summons to depart may come 
in "a day and an hour when you think not." Hap- 
py then the young man whose Lord shall find him 
waiting, working, looking even from the portals of 
an opening life here to the gates of that celestial 
inheritance, " incorruptible and undefiled, and that 
fadeth not away." 



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